The Choices I Make
by HimuraAlucard
Summary: Troubled by nightmares...the feeling of true friendship and then love...endless chaos...what lies ahead for one Saotome Ranma? (Chapter 4 now up)
1. Chapter 1

The Choices I Make.

By

Himura Alucard

Disclaimer:

I do not own any of the characters I have used in this little tale of mine. They all belong and will forever belong to their rightful owners. I'm just a poor soul who used them in a story that came out one night while I was doing nothing in particular.

Author Notes:

I know it's been a long time since I posted anything out…and I know I still have a few unfinished pieces but let's just call them 'finished' for the moment. A lot of things have happened in between my last post but for most part this story took up most of my spare time.

It's my longest one to date, it finished 24 chapters long and honestly the longer I try to make these the more I worry that by the midway the story would go flat but I tried my best to keep the story interesting. This story like all my others doesn't keep to a specific timeline so it could be said to be an AU.

Characters here maybe a little out of character but they had to be for the sake of the story. And things this time around would go a little slow between the main characters…For those who have never read any of my past Ranma stories well I'm an avid fan of Ranma and Kasumi, and so you have been warned.

I hope that you, the readers of this story would still find enjoyment in the reading…all comments are welcomed but please keep the flames to a low constructive simmer…it's been a long time since I've received one hehe.

Lastly but not the least, a very big thank you and gigantic arigatou goes out to my pre-readers, JohnnyG and Drkjester aka Thanatos. Without their efforts I wouldn't have noticed the mistakes that were made during the initial writing of the story, for that I thank them greatly.

Now onto the story…

**Chapter 1**

-

Everyone has choices to make, from the very beginning of their lives till the very end. Some are easy, and some hard, but we all have to make them either way. But there are some choices that we make in life that aren't asked of us to decide, but rather enforced upon us…

-

Ranma stared wearily out of his room window towards the orangey horizon that centered on the first creeping rays of the morning sun. Indicating to the whole world that another day was about to start.

"How long has it been?" A question he asked no one in particular.

"Long enough…" he replied back to himself.

Ranma let out a halfhearted sigh, and got down from sitting on his room's windowsill to get himself ready for his usual morning exercises. Stepping around the idly sleeping and loud snoring figure of a rather oversized Panda with a blanket that was rather too small to cover him, he left the room.

Normally Ranma would still be in a blissful slumber right about now, but instead he was wide awake. He had been going on like this for a few weeks now, barely sleeping enough during the night and barely making it through the rest of day without blanking out.

What was the reason behind Ranma's erratic sleeping behavior?

-

A few weeks back Ranma, with his school bag swung around his back, was happily walking along the path back to the Tendo Dojo after a boring day at school, when suddenly he felt as if someone was watching him. The feeling got stronger and stronger until it felt like whomever it was that was watching him was boring into his soul.

Ranma stopped and looked around, glancing across the street from where he was standing, but found nothing. Even leaping up onto a nearby wall to gain a better vantage point was fruitless as well.

'Damn it…who in the heck is watching me?'

Just as he mentally thought the question, Ranma felt the sensation of being watched being lifted up from him. Feeling no immediate return of that creepy feeling he returned to his original purpose, walking home.

With his second step forwards he heard his name being called, "Saotome Ranma…"

Coming to an instant halt Ranma looked around him, the sensation that he was being watched rushed back towards him again.

"Look whoever you are, you better show yourself," he demanded.

Ranma did a slow anti-clockwise turn, hopeful to pinpoint where this person or being was exactly. Just as he turned towards a rather dimly shadowed part of an alley he hit pay dirt.

Rushing towards the strong sensation of a pair of eyes Ranma poised himself to face whoever it was, but as quickly as he rushed in, he suddenly came to a stop. Right there in front of him, sitting Indian-styled on a very faded looking bamboo carpet, was a very old looking woman complete with white graying hair tied into a bun on top of her head.

"Nice to meet you again, Saotome Ranma," she prompted.

Ranma was sure he had no memory whatsoever of ever seeing her before.

"Again?" he quizzed.

The elderly woman overheard him and laughed. "Yes…again. This is in fact our second meeting Ranma. I guess you were too young back then to remember the last time we met."

Ranma crouched down tardily and carefully studied the woman a bit more while racking his memories hard trying to remember. The woman gave Ranma all the time he needed to try and recall the memory, if he could.

As a very blurred image floated around the insides of his head, he spoke. "You…you were that old lady from that town pops and I once stayed in while we were in China. I was waiting for pops to come back with some food."

The old woman smiled a little wider as Ranma slowly began to remember, "You then said my name and I turned around…"

Simple nodding the old woman produced from within her long overlapping sleeves what looks like deck of cards and began to one by one spread it out in a pattern on the carpet.

"I then told you that we'd met again in ten years time from that day and today is that very day…" she gave the first card she took out a very long look.

Ranma thought hard and frankly he had totally forgotten about that day and was struggling to recall it, the look he had etched on his face told her so.

"Well that doesn't really matter now for that is in the past. And right now I will tell you of your present and maybe your future. You might want to get comfortable…" as she pointed to the empty space on the mat in front of her.

Ranma sat down, copying her sitting position on the carpet, and listened in. "I see that so far your life has led you through many circumstances and also many paths..."

She accented the word 'paths' heavily with a raised eyebrow and shot a quick look at him.

"You have succeeded in many trials but also failed in countless others…"

By now Ranma's ego and the word failure don't go well together so…

"I have not failed once!" he loudly huffed.

His reply made for a very quick laugh from the old woman. "But oh you have… Ranma, oh you have. You've failed in making the choices that would have made your life so different and maybe a lot happier. Can you really say that you are happy with your life?"

Ranma quickly countered, "Yeah…of course I'm happy…"

"You're a liar… you are haunted constantly by indecision and endless self doubt. Your life is nothing but a whole assortments of self imposed mistakes and naïve foolishness. Saotome Ranma, you have yet to feel a single day of true happiness since we last met all those years ago," she shot back.

Her words stung a bit but Ranma retorted back, "Well says who! I am happy…very happy indeed…" Trailing weakly off at the end of his sentence didn't convey the truth of that fact.

"If you say so… but now I'm here to tell you of what you may face…"

Ranma hurriedly cut in, "Well who says I'm going to listen…"

Ranma just had enough of this and as he got up she said, "The burden of your problems lies within the hearts of three young girls who all vie for your affections. But yet you do not give to them what they want, instead you choose to withhold your own heart and true feelings from them..."

With his back turned towards her. "You have some nerve… obasan." Ranma's voice spilled over with threatening intent.

"I'm only telling what I see from the cards…"

Ranma glanced over his back just for a second and saw what type of cards she was looking at, some version of Tarot cards.

"I don't believe in that mumbo jumbo…" he spat.

The old woman, after dealing out the last card onto the pattern, continued regardless. "Your troubles don't just end there… you are faced with so many choices that needs to be made but you are hesitant to make your definitive choice. Instead you try so hard to find a choice that will lead all of those you care for to some sort of happiness. But you never asked yourself what if that choice doesn't exist? How long have you tried to find an alternative that you can make that will lead everyone to happiness? What if all the choices you thought were right were wrong? And in wanting everyone to be happy you may end up being terribly miserable?"

Ranma hated to hear what she had said, but in the back of his mind he dreaded to admit that she was right in some ways.

"I'd try to find a way to make everyone happy somehow…" he growled to her.

"Very well… you are as hardheaded now as you were back then, but hear this. Reflect back at your young life and see how much you have achieved. Then try looking forward and see how far you would go with those choices…"

"That's my business… you old…" Ranma stopped mid-sentence to see that the old woman had disappeared once he had turned around.

-

That was weeks ago and Ranma was fine at first, but her words slowly began to trek from the back of his head right into each of his thoughts. Every night from that day on he'd lay awake on his futon thinking back to what she had said.

'What I've achieved? And what is my future?' Ranma thought to himself in the recesses of his mind.

Ranma would eventually fall to sleep, but in his sleep he would memory-dream of his past, from the times spent in China to where he was now, but those were the good dreams. His nightmares would be those of his future where he was old, withered and gray like the old lecher Happosai but was still being chased by Ukyo, Shampoo and Akane.

That nightmare however couldn't compare to the nightmare where Ranma saw himself old and gray, sitting down alone under a tree inside a park, looking out to the children playing around him. He'd see one of the children suddenly fall down in front of him and as he looked carefully he swore that the young boy looked a lot like Ryoga.

And when the boy ran crying to an elderly looking couple sitting on the next bench, Ranma eyes grew wide. The couple looked like Ryoga and Akane, only older, but they were happily consoling the young child to stop his tears. Then looking around he'd see older versions of everyone else.

Shampoo was with Mousse, Kuno was sitting down with Nabiki, Ukyo with Kontatsu, and Kasumi was with Dr. Tofu. Every one of them happily playing with their grandchildren except him; he had no one to play with or no one sitting beside him.

Ranma would then wake up drenched in his own cold sweat from those nightmares. He had been waking up like this more frequently now whether he liked it or not. Then he'd be too afraid to go back sleep, or exhausted Ranma would sit on his futon with his knees tucked into his chest and lay his head on his bent knees thinking.

'Is that how am I going to end up? All alone…?'

For the first few weeks Ranma acted as if everything was normal, but all those sleepless nights one day caught up with him. One morning, looking extremely haggard and eyes blackened, Ranma staggered down to the breakfast table.

Soun looked up above his morning paper wanting to say good morning to him but stopped when he saw his appearance. "Ranma… my boy you look absolutely terrible… are you alright?"

This lead to his own father asking, "What have you been doing?"

Mumbling his answer to the two men Ranma sat down beside who he thought was Akane but was actually Nabiki.

"Ranma… err… are you sure there's nothing wrong with you? I don't want to lose out on today's bets at school," she fretted. True Nabiki was concerned with her wagers, but even looking at the poor boy herself she couldn't help but ask him about his well-being.

This made Akane take a quick look at him, but she was still mad at Ranma for allowing Shampoo to glomp him two days ago. "Humph… must have been doing something perverted…"

Kasumi was the last person to enter and as she handed everyone their bowls she let out an almighty "Oh my…" when Ranma tiredly smiled for her while accepting his bowl.

"Ranma…! You look absolutely horrible, are you feeling okay?" Kasumi then quickly placed a palm over his forehead but felt no temperature.

Normally Ranma would be blushing right now from Kasumi's innocent touch, but all he could muster out was a whisper.

"Fine… Kasumi… nothing to worry about…" He weakly took her hand down from his forehead.

Kasumi gave Ranma a weak smile and continued handing out the remaining bowls, but still wasn't so sure of Ranma's current condition. During the whole breakfast, Kasumi noticed how Ranma barely touched his dish of grilled fish and only drank tiny sips of his miso soup. He even let his portion of fish get stolen from right under him from his father.

All he managed was to take in a few bites of his rice before standing up with Akane and Nabiki for school. Heading for the door, or rather floundering to it, Ranma accepted his bento, giving another weak smile to the now rather worried looking Kasumi.

"Ranma, are you sure you want to go to school? You can call in sick… I can take you to visit the clinic."

"It's okay… Kasumi… really. See… as fit as a fiddle…" Ranma tried to puff out his chest, but strangely couldn't find the strength to, but continued to walk out of the Dojo.

Kasumi tentatively trailed behind him and looking out to the pathway she found that both Nabiki and Akane had already gone on ahead without him.

'At least they could have waited for Ranma. Didn't they see how terrible he looked?' She sighed mentally, a little saddened by their complete disregard for the young martial artist.

Slowly, but definitely, Ranma took step after step instead of his usual run and reached the main gates of the house. Just as he was about to walk out, Ranma felt a little lightheaded, so he leaned a hand on the heavy gate to prop himself up.

Ranma's vision slowly blackened and then he felt nothing. Kasumi was still standing by the inner doorway and, as if in slow motion, witnessed at first Ranma leaning on the closed gate and then suddenly collapsing beside it.

"RANMA!"

-

Kneeling down beside the sleeping figure of Ranma in his room, Kasumi wondered how she could not have noticed how Ranma's condition had degraded until this stage.

Thinking back she was a little occupied with trying to get Akane at least to be back on talking terms with Ranma after that afternoon when she came back home as if she was ready to start World War III.

A few hours later, Ranma, or rather Ranma-chan, lurched past her in the kitchen, heading up to her room mumbling something about "uncute tomboys should be banned from using mallets."

After that Ranma himself, at any given time, would just give everyone a wide berth, growing tired of explaining over and over again about what happened between him and Akane.

But looking at his very tired, listless face, Kasumi still couldn't forgive herself for overlooking this. It wasn't everyday that Ranma would just suddenly faint in front of the house, and when he does, you know something is very, very wrong.

Luckily her father and Genma had been around to help her carry the poor boy back up to his room and settled him down onto his futon after Kasumi had set it out for him. The two then went back downstairs mumbling about how 'weak' or how 'unmanly' fainting was for someone like him.

'How could they even say that when he fainted right in front of the house without knowing why?' Kasumi contemplated angrily at the two elder men.

Sadly Kasumi, as much as she wanted to stay and look after Ranma, had her usual morning chores to complete. But she promised him that she'd look in on him when she finished.

-

It was early afternoon and right after returning home from her afternoon shopping Kasumi slid Ranma's door open and quietly walked in to check on Ranma as she promised, not that he had heard her before.

Kasumi noted that Ranma had barely even moved from where he had laid since that morning, and after a quiet wait of fifteen minutes, Kasumi let out a soft sigh from her lips and started to quietly head for the door.

Just as her hand reached the handle to push it open she heard the ever so light rustling sound of someone waking behind her. Turning around her expression lit up a little brighter since morning on seeing Ranma stirring lightly.

Quickly making her way back to kneel beside him she asked, "How do you feel Ranma?"

In his tired state, Ranma barely had the strength to open his heavy eyes, but made out Kasumi asking him, "How do you feel Ranma?"

Albeit slowly, Ranma willed his eyes to open and answered her. "I feel as if I got blasted by a chi ball the size of Tokyo…"

This made Kasumi giggle a bit, but she took delight that Ranma was somewhat on the mend. But she quickly regained her composure.

"Ranma… by any chance are you getting enough sleep lately? Is there something bothering you?"

Ranma felt that he would just able to tilt his head slightly so he turned to face Kasumi. "Nah… it's nothing. I've just been having some trouble sleeping that's all. It'll go away soon enough…"

The youth then tried to sit up, but as he did his sudden exertion brought upon a splitting headache, which promptly caused him to flop back down flat onto the futon.

"Ow… ow… ow…" complained Ranma as he held his head.

"Ranma, you shouldn't try to get out of bed just yet. You've been out for almost a whole day…" mentioned Kasumi.

Looking up to his ceiling, "What you mean a day, Kasumi? What time is it now anyways?"

"Ranma… do you even remember anything about what happened to you?"

Shaking his head on his pillow, Kasumi began to fill Ranma in on the morning's events.

Sitting in silence, Kasumi studied Ranma, who for the first time she could remember looked so unlike the Ranma of old. His cheeks were a little drawn in, his eyes had lost the glint they once held and his overall surefooted presence had lost some of its arrogance.

"Ranma… what's wrong?" asked Kasumi, breaking the silence.

Her question seemed more like a request, but its simplicity hid its dire need to be answered by her soft voice.

"Do you think about your future?" was all she could hear Ranma say.

Kasumi was caught off guard with his blunt questioning. "Well… err… of course Ranma. Don't we all?"

Ranma's lips formed a sad smile. "I didn't…"

Kasumi scowled a little for him to see. "I mean Kasumi I've never thought about my future… I'm a 'live one day at a time' kinda guy, or rather I was…"

Her frown then changed into a look of confusion.

"There's nothing wrong with that… Ranma."

Ranma lifted his right hand and bent it before covering his eyes with it. "Kasumi have you ever regretted not making the right choice when you had the chance to? I mean like you were given an option, and then you went and choose the one that's not going to hurt anyone the most, instead of the logical one, but then it just brings on more problems…"

Kasumi was now even more confused, but in a way she sort of understood what he had wanted to ask her.

"Ranma… you sound tired. Maybe you should get some more rest. Maybe we can continue this chat when you're feeling better."

Leaning down a little, Kasumi had wanted to bring his blanket up a bit, but her hands only went halfway, for Ranma's own free left hand held them back.

"Kasumi… did you regret inviting us into your home? I mean, you had the chance of kicking us out a long time ago…" he said, looking very soberly up to her.

She couldn't understand why Ranma was acting so weird all of a sudden, but Kasumi figured that she could at least get to the bottom of Ranma's troubles by listening to what he had to say.

"Truthfully on a few occasions I have thought about it…" Kasumi then sat back down and patted Ranma's hands lightly before continuing. "But I never went through with it."

"Why?"

Seeing how Ranma was eyeing her with so much doubtfulness, she thought about what she wanted to say to him a little longer then usual.

"Well… for one you are Akane's fiancé, and secondly I had only honestly thought about kicking your father out, not you… Ranma," she said with a smile.

Ranma showed a weak grin but allowed her continue. "Well sometimes I see how Genma ji-san and Otosan do more damage then good sometimes with their so-called plans, and well sometimes I wonder if it would help things between you and Akane not having him around you two."

"Good point… I could have done so many things differently if pops wasn't around…" Ranma weakly interjected.

Kasumi was just about to add something but Ranma continued, thus she stood down. "Things could have been different, but maybe things could have stayed the same even if he was…"

Ranma talking all psychological like that made Kasumi fret a little. "Ranma…" she began.

Ranma could sense what she was about to say and cut her off.

Lifting his arm from his eyes. "You must think I've gone nuts… Ranma's finally lost it huh?"

Kasumi quickly shook her head. "No… Ranma… I never…"

"I don't blame you Kasumi… for the past few nights I've been thinking that maybe I've gone nuts… staying up in bed all night looking up at the ceiling, thinking about so many things at once. All the choices I've made in life… were they the rights ones? How many people I've unintentionally hurt by making them, instead of actually helping them…"

Ranma's words sent a small shiver up Kasumi's spine. The way he described it was exactly the way he was looking up to the ceiling right there in front of her, deep in thought.

"Ranma… life is like that. There isn't a choice which is totally right or wrong. I mean, well of course there are right ones and wrong ones, but in certain situations either one doesn't seem like the right one…" Kasumi was hopeful that she had got her point across to him.

Looking back up at her, Ranma said, "Well, if I had made some of those right ones, I wouldn't be in the damn mess I'm in right now in my life…" His voice was somewhat now raised.

For some unknown reason Kasumi wished she hadn't heard Ranma say that.

"Kasumi… I've looked back at my life so far and what have I've done? Nothing… squat!" his sudden outburst startled her a little.

"I've never had much of a choice in pretty much everything I've done. My engagements, my training, heck I don't have any control of my life. And when I do have choices to make I can't make them! What are my choices? Marrying someone who probably doesn't want to marry me in the first place? Having to protect her for the rest of our miserable lives together from everyone else? And if I did, I'd make my friends go against me… then after that I'd make your home and this town into a natural disaster area. Those aren't what I call easy choices… damn I wish I didn't have to make them at all. But I know I have to and when I do, I know I'll end up hurting everyone. Maybe it'd just be okay if I'm the only one left hurting…"

By now, Ranma has started to tremble and his eyes began to water over.

"Sad thing is that I know nothing other than how to fight… heck… I can't even keep up with my studies in school because I can't stay awake long enough. What type of life I am making for myself if I make that choice too? In the end I might just end up with nothing and no one…"

Ranma gradually turned his back towards Kasumi, trying to hide the tears that were streaming steadily from his left eye down along the bridge of his nose adding to the tears from the right.

If Ranma had still been facing Kasumi, then he would have seen her tears welling over as well. She was crying for the both of them in a sort of way. "Ranma…" she whispered.

She repeated calling his name two more times, but in the end she rather strongly forced him to face her.

Now staring directly down into his teary blue ones with her own watery brown, she said, "Ranma… you've done so many good things that I've lost count. Most of the negative things that you've described aren't even your fault, or were beyond your control in the first place, so don't go blaming yourself for those. Maybe you just need some help with your studies … I know you've got it inside of you to do well… you just need to set your mind to do it. And your not going to be alone, I'll be there with you if you want me to…" she evenly mouthed each word down to him.

A few of her lone tears dripped down onto Ranma's cheeks. Looking up and seeing how sad Kasumi looked caused Ranma's heart to tear up. He was now feeling even more miserable then before for making Kasumi cry and regretting it.

Gently sitting up, Ranma shifted a bit closer to Kasumi, close enough that her left sleeve's edge was just brushing up to his chest. Kasumi was now hiccupping in between her quiet sobs. She then tried to calm herself down by hugging herself. All Ranma could do was sit there besides her, not knowing what to do or what to say to her.

"Please… Kasumi don't cry. I didn't mean for you to cry… please," he timidly pleaded.

Ranma raised his right hand, but left it hovering just over her left shoulder, deliberating within himself if he was doing the right thing.

But he didn't have long to think about his situation as Kasumi's head gently rested down onto his chest and her hands went up and grabbed hard onto the front folds of his usual red shirt.

"I'd stop crying if you'd stop feeling like this… Ranma," she tearfully pleaded.

"Okay… I'll stop…"

-

After a few minutes, Kasumi's sobs gently died down, but her hold on his shirt was still as strong. Ranma, with his two hands beside him propping himself up from the floor, wanted to comfort Kasumi as best he could, but all he could do now was just to offer her something to cry on.

Ranma had a terrible track record with girls and he had, by now with Akane's constant help, etched into his mind that any contact with a girl, physical or otherwise, was deemed perverted. But he fought the urge to run away, stating to himself that this is Kasumi and the only reason she was crying was because of him and if he was a man then he should at least help her stop.

Gradually Kasumi pushed herself off his chest and wiped the few persistent tears off her slightly flushed cheeks and very red eyes.

"I'm sorry Ranma," she managed to say.

"Nah… it's me who should say sorry Kasumi… not you…."

Kasumi, looking up to Ranma's face, couldn't really think back to a time when she had actually seen Ranma cry. His cheeks were a pale crimson and his eyes glossed over in a way it made him look quite attractive, in an innocent way. Noticing how Kasumi was staring at him, Ranma looked away.

"Kami's… what would pops say about this if he saw me. Son… crying is unmanly…" Ranma tried to copy his father's voice at the last part, but just wasn't in the mood for it. He began wiping the tears off his face with his hands, while looking away from Kasumi.

But as his hands went up, Kasumi intercepted them and she carefully pulled his face back into her line of view. Lifting up the edge of her white apron, she gently wiped all traces of him ever crying from his face.

"Crying doesn't make you unmanly silly… actually I think it makes you stronger…" said Kasumi softly, as she wiped the last stream of tears from his left cheek.

Leaning back slightly Kasumi smiled upon seeing Ranma's face now seemingly looking much better. But his cheeks did rise to a higher tint or two from her actions.

"Err… thanks Kasumi…" Ranma sounded rather uncertain about what had just happened between them.

"Mind telling me what made you think like that?"

Shifting his legs under him, Ranma after some considerate thinking, spoke. "I guess I should start from the beginning…"

Ranma told Kasumi of the mystery lady and how she seemed to know everything about him, and how he met her for the first time while he was in China, and how he had then met up with her a few weeks ago while coming home.

He then proceeded to tell her about her deck of cards and how she told him of his current situation and how it may affect his future.

"You must think I'm really silly to let an old lady with some hoo-ha card trick make me think like this, huh Kasumi?" he asked her, his voice hinted of both shame and embarrassment.

"Well… to a certain point yes…" This reply made Ranma's head dig slightly deeper into his arms, but Kasumi remedied it by lifting it back up to face her.

"But I also think that it may have been a good thing…" she continued.

Now Ranma looked totally dumfounded and with a thoughtful smile Kasumi explained.

"I mean it has made you think about things like your future, right Ranma? You've probably finally accepted what are your weaknesses and strengths. If you could use that knowledge to your advantage, then you can do anything you set your mind to."

Ranma shuffled his knees together closer to his face. "Knowing them isn't helping me out Kasumi. For the past year I've been wracking my brain trying to think of a way to make everyone happy and come out on top. But I've hit so many dead ends so many times already that I was about to give up. My studies aren't going anywhere either… I've already been branded as a failure by the teachers… maybe I should just accept my life as it is."

Kasumi couldn't help but get angry with Ranma and how fast he was giving up, which was a rarity.

"Saotome Ranma! I've known you long enough to know that you are not a quitter!" she said loudly, hopefully loud enough for him to get back to his old self.

This brought Ranma back a little and having his full attention, she continued. "Ranma…" Her voice had returned to its softer tone.

"For every problem in life there are many solutions and ways to tackle them. Maybe if you have someone else beside you helping you, to offer a different point of view to figure things out. Two heads are better then one, right? You need to share those problems with someone and not just keep them bottled up… someone who you can rely on."

Ranma thought about it for a second. "Someone I rely on? Well… Akane's out of the question. I know she tries, but she just ends up thinking that I'm planning to do something perverted. Nabiki's definitely out since I can't afford to keep her quiet. Ukyo… well she's a good friend, but I don't think I can say this type of stuff to her. Shampoo and Kodachi are, well, just them. Ryoga, Mousse and Kuno would rather see me go bonkers…"

Kasumi remained quiet as Ranma listed the names of all the people he knew. "Then there's you… Kasumi…" he trailed off.

"Me?" Kasumi was rather surprised to even be mentioned. Though they lived together for months now, their interactions were kept to the bare minimum of breakfast, lunch and dinnertime, not to mention the convenient delivery of a kettle of hot water.

"Yeah, you… at least you're listening to me now."

Kasumi furrowed a brow, "Come now Ranma, I'm sure a lot of people are willing to listen to you." This was met with a loud snort from Ranma who again buried his face into his arms.

"If I said that this is the first time that someone actually stayed still long enough to listen to me talk about something, instead of glomping me, punting me out to orbit, trying to poisoning me, or trying to challenge me to some duel to the death, would you believe me?"

Kasumi considered this long and hard before letting out a sigh, he was most likely right. She had never seen anyone actually just having a normal conversation with Ranma.

"Well… Kasumi you're the first person who has really ever listened to me. I don't know why the other girls don't; maybe it's a lot of other things, but they just don't. Pops would keep on saying the usual crap, and in the end, I'm left to myself to think things through…"

"Not if you're willing to share…" Ranma heard Kasumi say. Lifting his head out from his arms, "Ranma, I'd be glad to listen to you if you have a problem, or problems, if you want to talk to me, that is…"

"Err…I don't want to be a bother to anyone…it's my own problem and I should solve them myself…that's the manly thing to do…you probably have your own problems to work out. I don't want to add mine on top on yours, Kasumi..." Ranma uttered.

'It's not like the others would come to me and ask me for my advice so why should Ranma be any different? Everyone thinks I am that clueless about things around me, don't they?' she asked herself sadly.

Ranma quickly caught on to the hapless expression she now wore and countered, "It's not like that Kasumi… I mean, why would you even want waste your time listening to me?"

Kasumi responded to him the only way she knew how, with a simple sweet smile. "Because I want to..."

-

How did it go? Should I continue on with Chapter 2...?


	2. Chapter 2

Disclaimer:

Same as Chapter 1…I don't own Ranma or any of its characters…if I did well the pairings would go the way I write about them… 

Author's notes…

I really, really appreciated all the reviews I've received for chapter 1 and thank all the readers for writing me a review. I sincerely hope that I don't fall short of all the reader's expectations of this story.

I do hope that you'd enjoy this second installment as much as the first chapter and I would like to completely once again thank JohnnyG and Drkjester aka Thanatos for doing a wonderful job of pre-reading this fic for me.

Onwards to the story…

Chapter 2

* * *

"Morning Betty-chan…" chirped the resident physician of the ward, a Dr. Ono Tofu. 

While walking into his silent office from his kitchen he noted the date on his desktop calendar and stopped in mid-thought, "Ah…today I'd be getting a new assistant…"

It was still a good hour before he opened the clinic doors for that morning and since nothing else was in need of his attention he decided to sit down and run through his appointments for the coming day or days on his appointment book while looking out the window.

"I wonder how come on some days it can be so busy and on some days no one just wants to come but yet I'm happy as it seems Kasumi happens to know just when there are no patients to drop by eh…Betty…ah…twitch bork Kasumi…bork …twitch sweet Kasumi…"

As the good doctor started to slow dance around the room as he picked up Betty-chan and take 'her' as his partner. He didn't hear the light sounds of knocking on his door.

* * *

"Morning yawn Kasumi…" greeted Ranma, yawning as he walked past her while enroute to the Dojo.

"Morning Ranma, breakfast will be ready in thirty minutes and don't forget to wash up before you come down. I don't want you to be all sweaty at the table…" she kindly reminded.

Ranma who was halfway out the door popped his head back in and gave her a mock salute, "Hai…Kasumi-sama…"

To this Kasumi replied lightheartedly with a standing in attention stance, her feet even making a sound on the floor.

'What a difference a day or a nights makes…' Kasumi said to herself merrily as she hummed a familiar tune from her memory.

* * *

No one would ever come to know of what had happened that afternoon inside Ranma's room for Kasumi and Ranma willingly kept it to their selves. 

But Kasumi's memories from yesterday afternoon were replaying themselves at the back of her mind with perseverance…

"Kasumi…err…if you don't mind would you keep what happened here a secret. I don't want pops to drag on about me crying until I grow old…" was his plea to her before she left his room.

Kasumi nodded and promised him not to ever tell a soul, "What happened here will never go out of this room, Ranma. I promise."

So with Ranma seemingly in better health and still in need of rest she decided to get on with the rest of her chores and went back downstairs.

'Let's see I have my laundry hanging out to dry, bought all the ingredients for tonight's dinner, oh it's about time to scrub the furo and what else…'

Kasumi slowly ran through her list of Monday chores mentally and wrote off the ones that have been done. In the end hearing the clock by the livingroom chimed two times Kasumi calculated that she would just have enough time to scrub the furo before preparations for dinner.

Ranma stayed in his futon for a good ten minutes contemplating this time about the better things in life. 'Well…I guess I can't be that big of a screw up cause at least I have someone who'd finally listen to me…'

After that train of thought, "Well…times a wasting." Ranma then got up and after a refreshing wash of his face he walked back into his room and the first thing he did was to put back his futon into the cupboard.

Pulling back the curtains to let the afternoon sun into his room Ranma stretched his-self out and well he was quickly getting bored.

He didn't feel like going anywhere and well it was too early for training at least not in his condition. Walking back out he had wanted to go downstairs but he figured that his father and Soun would be in their never ending game of crooked Shoji. And if they saw him they would pounce on him and berate him on his fainting.

Looking around the second floor Ranma saw a perfect place to hang out for a bit. Walking out to the second floor balcony, which had been rebuilt since it last collapsed, which then caused the whole commotion between him and Nabiki. Ranma once outside took in a deep breath of fresh air.

Leaning on the railing Ranma's eyes wondered around the backyard. Kasumi's drying laundry was flapping under the afternoon breeze. Other then that not much else was happening except for the occasion moans of two fathers who would accuse each other of cheating.

Brushing off the floor of the balcony clean with his hands Ranma sat his-self down and looked straight ahead to the afternoon Nerima skyline through the railings. He questioned himself if he had a choice would he have liked to call anywhere else other then here, the Tendo home, his home?

* * *

Ranma didn't know how long he had sat down there on the balcony just looking out to the skyline but the few lone specks of water droplets brought him out of it.

Wiping the droplets from his cheek he looked up to the heavens, 'Rain?'

He hadn't noticed how fast the weather had changed and how the once blue sky was covered with patches of dark clouds filled with rain. And as the frequency of the drops started to gain in ferocity Ranma stood up and was about to step back inside when he caught a glimpse of something out of the corner of his eye.

Kasumi wiped her brow as she examined the results of her work, a very shiny looking furo. "Whew…that was tougher then usual…" After packing up most of her cleaning materials Kasumi walked out of the bathroom only to realize how dark the hallway looked and then it hit her.

Ranma saw that Kasumi had yet to bring in her morning laundry and well since it was beginning to rain hard now Ranma sort of figured that it was a waste of all her efforts if she needed to redo them. So getting up onto the railing Ranma poised himself and with one leap he launched himself into the air.

Kasumi carefully ran down the stairs, out to the livingroom, then passed the two who had moved inwards a bit on the outside walkway but still continuing their game of Shoji and then cursed lightly for forgetting to take an umbrella from the hallway cupboard

Ranma landed on the soles of his feet and with one quick rebound he leapt back up and with blinding speed he quickly gathered all the laundry that was hopefully spared from being too wet. With that task accomplished Ranma decided to spare Kasumi the effort of bringing it up to the laundry room/bathroom and leapt back up to the balcony.

After another perfect landing Ranma casually walked in and slid the balcony door shut behind him before heading to the laundry room. Feeling the laundry in her hands Ranma-chan was happy that she managed to save the laundry from getting too wet.

Kasumi panting a little, now jogged back towards the backyard and hurriedly opened the umbrella under the now fast heavy pouring rain and as she looked straight ahead half anticipating to see her now soaked laundry hanging on the lines instead all she saw was well literally nothing.

Her laundry had gone missing and looking back to the two men she didn't see a mass of clothes beside them either not that she had expected them to help her bring it in. Looking up this time she barely made out the balcony door closing.

'Ranma…'

* * *

Taking the opportunity of getting her breath back a little by slowly putting out the umbrella out to dry outside by the walkway Kasumi made her way upstairs to see if what she thought had happened indeed had happened.

Ranma-chan had just placed all the semi-dry laundry onto the iron table and she began to separate those which were relatively dry into the ironing basket while those that weren't dry enough she either hung them up by the wall or laid them on the said table.

As she laid out the last article on the table which happened to be an apron, 'I bet Kasumi's the only one who can make a plain simple white apron look special. Huh? Where did that come from…!'

Too caught up in his wondering thoughts of white aprons and reasons of why did he just think of Kasumi, Ranma-chan didn't hear the wearer of the aprons walking into the room behind her.

"Thank you Ranma…but you shouldn't have especially right after what happened to you." said a friendly voice behind her.

"Oh don't worry I feel greattttt….argghhhh!" screamed Ranma-chan as she spun around on her heels.

Kasumi couldn't help but laugh as Ranma wearing a look as if she had caught him well her with her hand in the cookie jar. But instead of a cookie Ranma was grabbing onto her white apron and was looking at it as if it was more in the nature of something intimate.

"You know Ranma…that apron just might look better on you then it does me…" noted Kasumi teasingly. Well in a sense it was true Kasumi had seen on a few occasions Ranma in her girl form wearing an apron and well she looked rather pretty.

Ranma-chan glanced down to the apron still in her hand and quickly hid it behind her back. "Come on Kasumi…this looks way better on you then it does me…"

Instantly both girls blushed a little at what was said and Ranma quickly laid out the apron onto the ironing board to dry out a little.

Kasumi recovered from the moment and walked a little closer to Ranma-chan, "Ranma…thank you."

"Thanks for what…?" Ranma-chan mumbled trying not to blush any harder then she was. Was it her or was the room getting a little warm as she tried to elevate the warmth around her neck by pulling on her collar.

Her natural instincts pressing her to run were going haywire. She needed to get out of the rather cramped laundry room right away but with Kasumi in standing in front of her that wasn't an option.

"I mean this…" Kasumi then pointed out to the various hanging and laid out laundry.

"Aw…that's nothing really Kasumi. I mean…I was outside and well I wasn't doing anything…it starting raining…ya' know I just didn't want ya' to redo the laundry so I took it in for ya'…"

Kasumi broke out laughing in front of the young redhead and turned around heading for the nearby washroom but not before dragging her along with her.

Tittering in giggles Kasumi barely managed to fill the small wash pail with warm water before handing it over to Ranma. Well she understood the warm water but what she didn't understand was Kasumi's laughing.

With a splash and then the opening of a sliding door a rather wet looking Ranma now stood before her, Kasumi quickly handed over the small towel she had held in her hand.

"Kasumi…what's so funny…?" he asked.

Feeling the insides of her stomach starting to ache from the constant laughing Kasumi responded, "Nothing Ranma…it's just that you can be so precious on occasions with the way you talk…I'm sorry if I sound rude but it's just well delightful…"

Ranma blushed and mumbled his way out of the bathroom forcefully passing by Kasumi who from the way Ranma had reacted she thought that she maybe had offended him and gave chase to the boy.

"Ranma…I didn't mean it…" she said out loud a little remorseful of her earlier behavior as she went after him.

She found him inside sitting in the middle of his room and stood by the doorway, "I'm sorry Ranma I didn't mean to hurt your feelings…" she apologized.

"Huh? Oh that…I wasn't angry at ya' Kasumi. I just ya' know feel a little…" he mumbled from underneath the towel over his head.

"Embarrassed?" as Kasumi finished up his uncompleted sentence.

"Ya'…that..." Ranma waved his hand around in the air but hid his still reddened cheeks under the towel.

"That's normal though I would have to admit Ranma. I thought that by now since having Shampoo, Ukyo, and Kodachi and maybe other countless other girls throwing themselves at you I figured you would have gotten over your shyness by now."

Ranma turned around facing the window rather then Kasumi, "Well…I didn't get use to it, girls still make me kinda feel…uncomfortable. And it's not my fault that they are throwing themselves at me either…" He huffed.

"Ranma…being with a girl doesn't have to be embarrassing and I didn't accuse you of anything. But you were with me just now in your room for quite some time and you didn't look the bit uncomfortable." added Kasumi interestingly.

"Well…that was just different…" was his reply.

"What was so different?"

Ranma scratched the back of his uncovered head and thought about it.

'Well that time I wasn't thinking about you like I just did…and at least I know you don't want anything from me…I hope.' was what he wanted to say but in the end Ranma kept quiet.

"Anyway thanks Ranma for taking in the laundry in for me…and to show my appreciation how about treating you to something extra tonight at dinner…"

With food being mentioned Ranma practically gleaming turned his head around just in time to catch Kasumi giving him a wink and then walking away from his door shutting it for him as she went.

And like she promised Ranma received a double helping of his favorite dinnertime dish later that night during dinner, which brought a few questionable stares from not the very least his father.

Finishing up with breakfast, yesterday's events would forever be remembered by Kasumi for quite sometime. For not only did she see a side of Ranma no one saw before but it felt like the two of them had started something of a close understanding and to Kasumi this could only be a good thing.

* * *

Back at the Tofu Clinic, the doctor was still in his waltz when…

The knocking which had been soft at first before degrading into a full blown bangs and only when the wooden door threatened to fall of its hinges did the waltzing doctor snap out of his Kasumi induced state of amok.

"Coming…" he yelled, straightening out his unbalanced glasses.

"Err…sorry but the clinic is still…" the doctor had in all anticipation intended to see one of his usual patients standing outside but instead standing there in front of him was a young lady with long blackish brown hair wearing a simple sundress.

The young lady stared up to the doctor and asked, "Are you, Dr. Tofu?"

"Yes…"

The young lady broke into a smile when he replied her question positively, "I'm your new assistant…"

"Ah, Well why don't you come in and talk inside…"

The young assistant eagerly followed Dr. Tofu into his clinic and looked around the small quaint clinic. 'I think I'd like it here…' she told herself.

"So…now let's see now." As the doctor took from her held out hands a brown envelope as they sat down in his office, scanning through the document briefly he somewhat in his daze had forgotten that formal introductions that were necessary and thus scanned for her name.

"Nice to meet you Dr. Yukari Megumi…" he beamed.

"Please Dr. Tofu just call me Megumi…and the doctor part won't come until I pass your internship."

Strangely the more he looked at her the more the bespectacled medical practitioner felt that he had seen her before somewhere before.

"So…Mrs. Megumi…"

This brought out a giggle from the longhaired young lady.

"Something wrong…?" enquired the doctor with a big question mark hanging above his head.

"Just call me Megumi…senpai."

Stammering a little at the informality, "Sure…so Megumi-san…where we were again…?" It had been a long time since anyone had called him senpai.

* * *

By late morning, after a heavy training session in the Dojo, Ranma even after his strenuous sets of exercises still felt rather refreshed. Not only because of his long rest but also felt as if he had taken a large chip of his shoulders. The talk he had with Kasumi was somewhat easing his weary head and mind.

"I know Kasumi would listen to me but I can't let her get dragged into my problems right?" Ranma asked himself, sweat dripping down the tip of his nose as he looked at his feet.

He knew only to well at how much 'trouble' he might bring to the innocent but helpful Tendo daughter if they were ever seen even being remotely close and congenial.

'That is something that I wouldn't ever want to bring upon her…I…'

Ranma's thoughts were broken by the familiar voice calling to him that breakfast was ready and that he should take his bath before Akane wakes up.

Looking at the girl peering towards him, "I will Kasumi I just need to cool down a little before taking my bath…" he replied.

"Okay Ranma…"

Though it was a short reply the effect of seeing Kasumi's smile brought a smile upon his own lips for some reason.

* * *

Dr. Tofu had to admit that Megumi was more then an able assistant since she herself was a certified doctor like himself. Only thing was that he felt that she could do so much more then just being putting it nicely an over qualified nurse in his clinic.

But what he couldn't shake off was the feeling that he'd seen her face somewhere before but till now still couldn't figure out where.

A steady stream of his regulars had filtered in and out and they had commented at firstly how pretty she was and then added also how well she handled their maladies.

"Megumi-san is that all of the patients for this morning?" inquired Dr. Tofu as he peeked out of his office.

Megumi hearing the doctor sighed wishing that he would drop the 'san' for maybe a closer 'chan'. But currently all thoughts of formalities were kept to a minimum as she was restocking up the medical supply cabinets and after looking at her flip pad she answered, "Yes…senpai. The next patient doesn't come in till 1.30pm…"

Dr. Tofu flinched at the title 'senpai' he still needed to get used to being called 'senpai' by someone.

With a modest smile on his face he asked the girl in the other office, "Megumi-san…how about we break for some lunch…I'm feeling a little hungry how about you…?"

* * *

During his classes in Furinkan High, Ranma did something that he had never tried to do before…stay awake for an entire school day. He reckoned that he would at least give it a try before he gives up on it.

Morning lessons were manageable though Ranma did hit his head hard on his desk a few times during his worst lesson, maths. But with the others he seemed to manage okay and not only did he stay awake but he actually was beginning to learn something.

'Guess Kasumi was right…if I want to do something really bad I can do it…' as Ranma recalled the conversation he and Kasumi had in his room while holding the bento that Kasumi had made for him in his hand.

Ranma laughed to himself, 'Kami's Ranma…you've been sleeping in classes for months now and it only took her to say those words and you breaking down to change…'

In a way Ranma's slight crisis and Kasumi's friendly advice did have an effect on him albeit minor. At least he now valued a lot of things that he had taken for granted like school for starters.

Since he arrived at Furinkan he had the idea stuck to him that he didn't need an education thus he paid no attention to it instead channeling all his efforts to the arts. But after the incident with the old lady in the alley Ranma decided to give Furinkan and an education another try, a serious one this time around.

It was like first day of school all over again for Ranma but sadly he was so way behind that even though he listened in the best he could Ranma couldn't make head or tail of what the teacher was teaching there in front of him.

But he wouldn't be discouraged; Ranma was determined to show the teachers that the same ones who labeled him as 'hopeless' could eat their words. That was all the motivation he needed to make him study.

'Now all I need is to…'

Ranma's thoughts were interrupted by the loud screeching noise of a pair of brakes and then the usual sensation of being squeezed of all the air out of your lungs.

He was on the receiving end of an Amazon glomp and not just any Amazon glomp but a Shampoo special edition Amazon glomp.

"Airen, Nihao…" sang her high-pitched voice.

Ranma who was by now turning a rather deep shade of blue tried to wiggle free but the Amazon's grip on his neck was amazingly strong.

Then a savior dashed in to his rescue or was it a case of out from the frying pan and into the fire.

"Okay…you Amazon hussy let my Ranchan go…" demanded Ukyo as she drew her giant spatula out to prove her seriousness.

Must have worked as Shampoo released Ranma and as Ranma regained his breath she confronted the Okonomiyaki chef head on. "Who you call hussy? You spatula wielding tomboy…"

Ranma rolled his eyes back he knew where this was going to lead to.

'At least Akane and Kodachi aren't here…'

Well Ranma said to soon as he stood up he saw Akane making her way or rather stomping her way towards them with her bento in hand. Just as it couldn't get any worst a steady rain of black rose petals started to fall around them.

'This isn't going to be my day…' Ranma sighed to himself, preparing for the worst.

* * *

Kasumi with a rather infectious smile on her face was on her way back from her usual afternoon shopping at the market. She was happy for a lot of things; one was Ranma seemingly on the mend and hearing the news that Tofu-sensei had finally gotten him an assistant.

While she was shopping around she overheard the rave reviews given to a certain new assistant of the local doctor. And when Kasumi had asked the other housewives who this new assistant was all they did was just smile while some giggled.

Since it was lunchtime Kasumi decided to drop by the clinic to see for herself who this new assistant was.

Dr. Tofu and Megumi were enjoying their afternoon lunch and were discussing things from the morning's patients. Megumi was the first one to hear the knock that came from the closed front door.

The doctor heard it too and just as he was about to stand up to open it, "Senpai…I'd get that…" and she walked over to the front door.

Kasumi stood patiently and as the door opened a young woman greeted her, "Good afternoon welcome to Tofu Clinic, can I help you?"

"Ah no it's nothing really…I'm just a friend of the doctor's and dropped by to say hi…"

Just then the doctor in question walked up to the door, "Megumi-san who is it…?"

Well as usual the poor doctor in seeing Kasumi standing by the doorway in the flesh went into his usual trance and then started to waltz towards his office looking for his usual waltzing partner, Betty.

"Ah…Kasumi-chan…is…here…isn't…that…wonderful…." he began to sing outloudly.

Megumi who was for the first time witnessing the doctor in his trancelike state ran over to him. She then grabbed hold of one of his waving hands, "Senpai…pull yourself together…"

Just as her hands touched his, the once dancing doctor suddenly stopped and regained himself instantly.

"Oh Megumi-san is anything the matter?" asked the doctor rather blankly as he looked down to where the girl was holding his hand.

* * *

Megumi quickly pulled her hand away sporting a little blush and just as Kasumi walked in, "Are you alright, Dr. Tofu?"

And with her presence just being there the doctor began to waltz again but Megumi quickly reestablished her hold on his hand and he returned to normal instantly. "Ah…Kasumi-chan, what brings you here?" enquired the doctor with a very straight face.

That's right he asked Kasumi a question not once but twice without stammering, quaking or dancing in fact. It was the first time he had talked to Kasumi normally…

This fact did not escape Kasumi but again thinking that it was a good sign, "Nothing sensei I was just by the market and I heard that you've now got yourself a new assistant…"

"Oh that well here she is…Megumi-san meet Kasumi-chan, she's been a close friend of mine since high-school. Kasumi-chan meet Megumi-san, my new assistant doctor."

The two young girls smiled and exchanged quick pleasantries but Megumi was somewhat the colder looking of the two she didn't like the effect this Kasumi had her senpai.

And as Kasumi left the clinic she didn't let the fact that Megumi had during the whole time she was talking to both her and Dr. Tofu was holding his hand.

Well if having four pretty girls kicking up a dust storm fighting over your sake doesn't make you feel arrogant of your abilities with the ladies then you must be Ranma.

Ranma was getting sick of the four girls Akane, Ukyo, Kodachi and Shampoo bickering between each other over the smallest thing everyday. He understood Ukyo and Shampoo's reasons, Akane well he had a pretty rough idea why she was fighting as well but Kodachi was the odd one out.

Normally Ranma would stay out of it he knew better then to try and stop them. He had tried to before in the past but would end up worst for wear by doing it so he had leant his lesson. But today something inside of him was bugging him to try and do something.

'Using brute force on them won't work…' lingered Ranma's thoughts. Then an idea hit him it was so whacky that it just might work.

All the four girls were too busy fighting when a sudden flash of light blinded them and threw them back a little. They all looked over to see who or what had caused it only to find a smirking Ranma standing there.

"What airen do that for?"

"Ranchan, I hope you weren't aiming for me…"

"My dear White Knight…please say it isn't so…that you had intentions to injure me, your princess…"

"WHY YOU NO GOOD!" growled Akane.

"Before you all say anything…why don't you four listen to what I have to say first for once…!" yelled Ranma.

The four girls remained motionless so Ranma continued, "All four of you have been fighting with each other since you've all met, why is that? Over me? Could be…but I didn't ask you four to do it, did I? It was your choice… each one of you all just thought that whoever wins in the end would get me right?" Ranma did a quick scan of all four girls.

They in turn looked at each other and with the exception of Akane they all nodded.

"Ha-ha…that's funny…" gagged Ranma rolling his eyes back, "I never said that the winner will get me you all just assumed it. You all just do things as ya like never asking me well I ain't taking it lying down anymore…if you four want to fight well go ahead kill each other or beat each other senseless for all I care but the winner isn't going to get me. It's my damn choice who I want to be with…" with that said Ranma repacked his now empty bento and walked back up to class.

As he left the eyes of the four girls followed him and as he disappeared into the classroom building they all sort of stood down. This was an unprecedented occurrence and well in their utter confusion all of them just turned away from each other and went on with what they were supposed to do in the first place before the fight started.

* * *

Ranma was a little happy that his plan had sort of work but it was just unlike him to use words to settle a fight or this case avert a fight. Ranma wasn't one to use words often to express himself in a battle he used action but somehow he felt that after a year or more of trying to fight fire with fire only to end up back at square one he decided to fiddle with his tactic a little and it worked!

'Wish I'd thought about that earlier…' mused Ranma humorously to himself while shaking his head.

Sure he was an excellent martial artist and could adapt to any situation in a flash, thinking up with new moves to counter and attack as he goes along that was his best attribute but all his thinking had been narrow and fixed. It was like he depended on his marital arts more often then not and not bothering to look elsewhere for an answer.

But lately after 'that incident' he found himself thinking of a whole lot of other ways to look at things instead of the usual one. Like just now with the girls normally he would try using his strength to split the four girls up but instead he chose to outwit them, which was so unlike him.

People often underestimate Ranma not in his marital arts but in his overall grasp of things around him that didn't involve the arts. Sure he was a little gullible when it came to matters of the fairer sex, eager to please everybody so to avoid any fuss and all the other stuff that came in between but he did have a brain and a pretty good one at that just maybe a little underused in certain areas.

But he wanted to amend that, Ranma wanted to change for the better this time around, maybe for a better future.

With the day's classes finally over Ranma felt as if his head was going to explode right there and then if he didn't stop listening. He had never tried to even listen in on a single class not the least a whole day of school before. Though he couldn't understand most of it Ranma did at least learn a few new things for starters.

Ranma was while walking home was trying hard to blank his mind to such extents that he didn't even hear Akane and Nabiki shouting to him to slow down. He was tired mentally and just as luck would have it Ranma had planned to get in some extra training done later to add physically tired to that list.

* * *

"You think something happened to Ranma that day when he got sick?" wondered Nabiki loudly.

Akane gave her second sister an odd look and then looking at the back of the hastily walking pigtailed boy walking way in front of them, "What do you mean, nee-chan?'

"I mean from what I saw during your lunch time battle Ranma perfectly psyched the four of you girls out of a fight…"

Akane hadn't thought about it that way and found that Nabiki was right.

"You think his brains got scrambled or something?" replied Akane uncertain, she never knew that Ranma had enough brains to do something like that.

"Well it's either that or all that malleting you've inflicted onto his poor head finally took effect…"

* * *

Thanks again for reading and I hoped you all liked it… 


	3. Chapter 3

Choices I Make

By

Himura Alucard

* * *

Disclaimer:

Don't own any of the Ranma characters, if I did most of them would end up with the chracters I want them to... )

3rd chapter of my on-going fic and thanks for all those who have sticked with it. As usual big thanks to JohnnyG and Drkjester aka Thanatos for doing a wonderful job of pre-reading.

* * *

Chapter 3

* * *

After gladly dropping his unusually heavy book-bag with a loud thud onto the floor beside his table, Ranma haphazardly walked downstairs and headed straight for the kitchen. His entrance into the room was greeted with the heavenly aromas of a fine dinner in the making by the resident chef.

"Mmmm…that sure smells real nice Kasumi…" Ranma complimented her absentmindedly, his eyes happily closed to take in the entire assault on his sense of smell.

Kasumi who had been standing by the stove was lightly startled to suddenly hear Ranma's voice behind her, for she truly didn't remember hearing his usual coming home greeting.

"Welcome back…Ranma, I'm sorry I didn't welcome you home just now…guess I didn't hear you come back." turning Kasumi, wiping her hands clean on her apron.

Ranma instinctively went for his patented scratch behind the head, "Ah…it's okay Kasumi, well truth is I sort of roof hopped back all the way back here and went straight to my room…I kinda actually skipped the front door..."

Kasumi quickly chastise him, a good-natured kind of chastening of course.

"Ranma, we do have a front door for a reason…"

The raven haired martial artist grinned innocently, "Well…Kasumi…err…you know it's easier to come right down from my room…ya' know instead of climbing up the stairs and then back down the stairs again I was thinking of going to the Dojo afterwards so I didn't want to go up and down again…ya' get what I mean don't ya'?"

As she listened into his explanation, Kasumi consciously did an up and down motion with her left index finger just to see it his reasoning made any sense.

"I think so…but still…a door…" Kasumi rationalized halfheartedly. She was trying her best to come up with a reason on why Ranma should still use the main door of a house for entry.

But even before she could explain herself fully, "SeeIknowyou'dunderstand…"

Ranma blurted his last sentence as quickly as he grabbed his bottle of water from the counter top and ran out of the kitchen saying out a hasty, "Thanksforunderstanding, Kasumi …." before scurrying off to the Dojo.

With Ranma halfway to the Dojo by now Kasumi let out a lighthearted chuckle and went back to tending her dinner.

* * *

Later that evening as a now freshly showered Ranma hurried downstairs to the dining room for dinner. His stomach was crying out to be fed he was starving, ravenous being the optimal word. After enjoying the foretaste of the dinner to come earlier that afternoon his appetite had been growing steadily and anxiously in waiting.

"Thanks Kasumi…" thanked Ranma after she handed him his bowl.

Just as Kasumi reached out to hand over Nabiki's bowl Ranma was already half way done with his rice.

Kasumi subconsciously smiled at this, 'This means Ranma's back to his old self…' she silently mused.

Soun and Genma had during the entire dinner goaded Ranma into telling them the reason why he had fainted that day. And when he said nothing they simply came to the conclusion that maybe he was staying up too late or something and 'advised' him from doing it again.

Nabiki sitting direct opposite of the boy and being the more observing member of the household knew that there was something more then that what Ranma was letting on to the father's.

She had always been the regular 'night owl' in the household and on occasions she would look out of her window late at night to maybe catch a view of the stars or take a deep breath of the crisp evening air.

Recently though for the past few nights she noticed that she wasn't the only one looking up to the night skies or enjoying a cold breath of cool night air. Nabiki had seen that Ranma was peeking out of his window as well for a few nights now.

He was just too zoned out to notice her that's all, but she knew something had been bothering him, but whatever it seemed to have been eating him had now gone away.

Akane meanwhile was simply covertly stealing glances over to Ranma sitting beside her to see if indeed all her malleting to his head were having any effort on the boy's overall persona.

* * *

With the plates used for the family dinner now carefully pilled up nicely and everyone contently walking away, their stomachs filled with another delicious dinner, Kasumi who was always the last person to leave the table contentedly stood up and collected the plates into her steady hands.

She then walked back into the kitchen to wash them before putting them back into their individual cupboards. This counted as one of her usual evening chores.

Akane and Nabiki had meanwhile gone off to the living room to watch some television while Soun and Genma continued on their game of Shogi outside by the walkway.

With the plates restored to their rightful place, Kasumi silently walked back upstairs to do her last chore of the day and that was to distribute the now neatly pressed and sufficiently cooled clothes she had ironed earlier to the various household members. She had already separated all the clothing's according to their individual owners.

Akane was first, then Nabiki and finally Soun and Ranma's but for tonight it was only Ranma's laundry. As Kasumi slid his room door open she was quite surprised to find Ranma inside seated behind his table.

"Oh…sorry Ranma I didn't know you were in…" she apologized for her intrusion.

Ranma with his back stiffly straightened sat there by his desk, his half opened book bag and a few books strewn around his side on the floor.

"Huh…oh its okay Kasumi…come in", as he waved her in.

'I need a break anyway…' thought Ranma as he took the chance to loosen his stiff back, neck and arms that popped loudly as he stretched them out.

Kasumi swiftly got on with her task noiselessly, trying hard not to disturb the boy and his studies as she returned the pair of black slacks and usual red Chinese shirt into his cupboard. Just as she was about to close the cupboard door she heard a loud cracking bang beside her.

* * *

Ranma after a minute of watching Kasumi rearranging his wardrobe had returned to his opened textbook and after the second minute looking at it, Ranma in his utter frustration banged his head, forehead first onto his wooden desk.

'I have no idea what to do…' he moaned to himself.

He had been trying to do the assignments that had been passed out earlier during the morning in his maths, physics and history classes but after looking at all three subjects Ranma came to the sad realization that he had no idea where to begin or what to do. His textbooks looked as if they were brand new and his exercise books were void of any written words.

With his forehead still plastered onto the surface of his desk Ranma never heard Kasumi walking up to his side but he heard her asking him gently, "Having some difficulties with your homework…?"

Shifting his forehead off from the table, Ranma looked sadly back at her, "Well…I'm trying to do my class assignments and I've just figured out that I've actually never done one before…"

Kasumi's mouth gaped open a little but kept it in check, "Ranma…" she began hesitantly, "You've been attending classes in Furinkan for almost a year now…and you're telling me that you've never passed up a single assignment?"

Ranma's sad nod was in stark contrary to her own sideways shaking, "Err…Ranma I hope you don't mind me asking but how did you get promoted last year?"

Not noticing the worried yet wondering expression Kasumi had on, "Well…I barely managed to scrape through last year's finals with a lot of last minute cramming but the teachers told me that I came up a little short. It was my extra curricular activities points that sort of evened it out…"

"Okay…Ranma…I get the idea…" she remembered the astronomical amounts of medals and trophies that Ranma had brought back during that particular time. All of them were now thankfully stored into various boxes in the Dojo storeroom.

"How about I help you out afterwards…let's say in thirty minutes but before that why don't you try your best to read up on the lessons that you've missed so that we can work on them later?" Kasumi suggested with a cheery smile.

"Sure…why not, I think I could use the help…" perked Ranma as he accepted her offer, a first for him. Admitting he needed help but Ranma right there and then didn't even have to think twice about his pride when Kasumi asked him if she could help him.

* * *

"So Megumi-san, this would be your room from now on for the duration of your stay here in the clinic…" Dr. Tofu had just gotten to showing Megumi around the upper level of the clinic and in particular was now showing her to her room.

"Senpai…where is your room?" she asked thoughtfully.

"Err…my room…err…it's down this hall…second door to the right…" replied the poor doctor with a loud gulp.

Megumi desolately noted to herself that it was the furthest most room down at the end of the corridor, seemingly miles from her own room.

"Anyway…tomorrow's a new day…so sleep tight Megumi-san, see you tomorrow…err…good night." the doctor wished her as he started making his way back to his room rather gingerly.

* * *

Ranma for the first time in his whole student life was so caught up in reading his history text book that he didn't even notice Kasumi quietly walking back into his room and even after settling herself down right beside him.

"Boo…"

"Arghhhh…!" screamed Ranma from the shock of hearing the voice, after letting out that girlish scream he sullenly looked at the person beside him.

Just then the history book that had been once gripped in his hands, the same book that had been thrown to the air above Ranma landed right back down onto his head with a loud thwack.

Kasumi just sat there beside Ranma laughing herself silly as she looked at how Ranma was giving her his rather cute whimsical look.

"Chez…Kasumi ya' could have just least told me that you were here 'gently' instead of giving me a freaking heart attack…" pouted Ranma, while picking up the hardback textbook.

"Sorry Ranma…I couldn't help it. You were just so engaged with your book reading that I just had to do it…"

"I ain't engaged to no book…I already have problems with being engaged to Akane, Shampoo and Ukyo…" retorted Ranma in a huff.

Kasumi couldn't help but laugh even louder after hearing what he said but she soon calmed down, "I meant 'engaged' as in 'busy' Ranma…you were busy reading…"

Not getting his mistake just yet, "Huh…? Oh okay…sorry to have screamed at you…."

"It's okay Ranma, so how are you coming along…?" wondered Kasumi, who was now ready to get into the all serious matter of helping him with his studies.

Ranma then filled Kasumi in on how far he had gotten and when she asked him honestly how much he knew about the subjects that he was taught in school…

Kasumi by the end of it figured that it would take a lot more work then she had initially presumed, but she wasn't daunted.

"Well Ranma, I guess we should start out with Math's since that's your weakest subject in school. Mind if I see what topics you have this year?" prompted Kasumi.

Ranma cringed at the word 'math's' but went along with Kasumi's suggestion and slowly picked up his maths textbook and handed it over to her.

Looking at the book, Kasumi was surprised to see how well kept it looked…actually it looked to her as if it was brand new.

"Ranma, you sure do take good care of your books…" she had meant that as a compliment at first.

"Huh? Oh…err…well I just took that out from my locker for the first time this morning." confessed Ranma.

Kasumi sweat dropped, it was already half way through the current school semester and if what Ranma said was true then this would be the fist time he was opening this book.

Impervious to the hill that she was about to climb or was it a mountain that was Ranma's educational skills, Kasumi scooted herself over close to Ranma's right side to join him behind the desk and began to slowly instructed Ranma on the finer points of algorithms and calculus.

* * *

An hour later, Ranma to his credit was giving his full attention to Kasumi but on the side of it he couldn't also help noticing just how nice she smelled. The two of them were sitting really close, close enough that his bare shoulder was brushing against hers.

Her hair lingered with traces of her lavender scented shampoo while her body…well her shoulders anyway smelled like freshly picked plum blossoms. Adding to that combination of fragrances the fact that Kasumi was wearing a rather beautiful frilly light blue nightgown that silkily hugged against her body, that sight that he was seeing before him alone could drive most men crazy.

"Ranma…?" came a voice.

Snapping out of his lost reverence, Ranma quickly caught how Kasumi was staring right at him, "Yeah…Kasumi sorry…" he bungled out.

"So do you understand what I've just said…?"

Ranma gulped and timidly asked if she wouldn't mind repeating herself and after Kasumi's second explanation Ranma found that he actually did understand what she was explaining to him.

* * *

"I think that's enough maths for tonight how about some physics after a small break?"

Kasumi's proposal brought out an audible cheer from Ranma.

"Anyway what were you thinking about just now Ranma?" the oldest Tendo wondered.

"Huh? What was I thinking?" he puzzled loudly to her.

Kasumi turned around facing him, placing her hands on the table.

"Just now you seemed lost for a while…"

"Err…well err…I was thinking just how nice you smell…yeah smelling real nice…Kasumi…that's all." Ranma then realized what he had said out loud to her and impulsively and in haste Ranma raised his hands right to the front of his face.

He even leaned back a little closing his eyes in preparation to block whatever was coming, which he thought he solely deserved.

Kasumi tilted her head slightly at the defensive display. "Ranma…I'm not going to hit you…"

Ranma slowly brought down his hands back down to his lap, "You're not?" he actually sounded real surprised that she had said that.

"Why should I do that?" Kasumi asked him honestly.

"Well…err…I took advantage of you…ya' know us being so close and I sort… accidentally smelled you. You know isn't that rather ya' know..." flustered Ranma, fidgeting rowdily before Kasumi with every word.

"Perverted?" she finished his sentence.

"Yeah…that…" nodded Ranma, even afraid to say the word.

Kasumi stared innocently at Ranma for a second and out of the blue she leaned in real close to his neck and cheeks and took in a deep breath.

By the end of that gesture Ranma cheeks were doing a fairly realistic imitation of a very fresh ripe tomato that Kasumi favored so much when she does her shopping in the market.

* * *

"So did you think what I did just now was perverted?" Ranma heard her asking.

"Err…umm…I dunno…" he shrugged, his expression misplaced.

Kasumi laughed out a bit, more at his display of pure innocence then embarrassment.

"Ranma…you were…I mean we were sitting so close to each other that of course you'd be able to smell the shampoo or bath lotion I used for my bath. It isn't something perverted, I leaned in close to you just now and smelled you too and well other then you really shouldn't use your bath soap to wash your gorgeous hair you actually gave me a compliment."

"I…did?" Ranma stammered back to her still blushing.

"Ranma, oh…you can be so ridiculously sweet sometimes but you have so much to learn about girls." lightheartedly counseled Kasumi.

"Err…I don't think I can ever get how a girl thinks…" he let out, laughing along with Kasumi this time around.

"Understand…" she corrected.

* * *

"Huh?"

"Understand how a girl thinks. That's the proper way to say it, Ranma."

It was late evening and as Genma sleepily walked into his bedroom after their tenth game of Shogi while simultaneously letting out a big yawn or rather growl for he was currently in his panda form.

Rubbing his sleepy eyes he then noticed how two pair of eyes was looking back at him. A sign popped up reading, 'Boy what are you doing with Kasumi this late inside your bedroom!'

Both Ranma and Kasumi read of the sign and replied, "Studying…"

Upon hearing this, the stout panda instantly fell over his back onto the floor and as another sign sprung up, 'You don't need an education! You are going to be the master of the Saotome Anything Goes Martial Arts and that's good enough.'

Ranma was about to say something but stopped when Kasumi spoke up before him, "That's where you're wrong Genma-jisan, I for one think that it's rather important that Ranma studies hard for his future. At least he has an education to fall back on just in case he decides that he doesn't want to become the master of the Saotome Anything Goes School of Martial Arts."

This comment made the panda sit up straight and threw a blank signboard aimed at his son's face, thinking that it was his son's wishes. Ranma promptly caught said projectile in mid air and threw it back at his father which hit Soun squarely on his face.

'Ungrateful Boy!' read the next sign before it fell limply down to the panda's side.

* * *

Kasumi felt a little furious with her father's long time companion comments but figured that, 'Well this comes from a man who most probably thinks that a woman's rightful place is in the house doing housework and looking after the babies…'

Turning to her right facing Ranma, "Ranma…why don't we finish this off in my room and let Genma-jisan sleep peacefully…" as Kasumi took hold of his hand, gently dragging him up to his feet.

Standing with Kasumi waiting beside him Ranma realized that he had been given a choice on what he wanted to do next, "You still want to Kasumi? I mean it's your room and ya' know…"

Ranma's eyes darted to the far right wall of his room and Kasumi sort of understood what he was getting at.

"Ranma…don't worry about Akane and Nabiki. We're not doing anything other then studying so it's perfectly alright. Of course not unless you're feeling tired…and you don't want to continue anymore…"

Ranma quickly waved his hands right in front of her, "No…that's not it Kasumi, actually I was kinda enjoying having you explaining stuff to me…heck I was even understanding what you were teaching me."

Kasumi's feelings lofted a little hearing Ranma stating the fact that she was very helpful and as she waited for Ranma to gather up the rest of the books they slowly walked over to Kasumi's bedroom.

* * *

And as the two walked out of the room they sort of well didn't mean to but they literally walked over the newly installed unconscious panda rug that was blocking the entire doorway of Ranma's room.

Ranma gulped as Kasumi switched on the ceiling light in her room while hesitantly leading him in. This would be the first time that Ranma would actually see how Kasumi's room looks likes.

And just like its owner, the inside wasn't lavishly decorated but Ranma found it surprisingly had a real homely presence to it. Only a small bed, 2 mid-sized cupboards and 2 medium height shelves, a small dressing table and reading desk were arranged inside of it.

"Ranma, why don't you make yourself over by comfortable the desk, I'd be right back after a little lady's break…" as Kasumi excused herself. Ranma did just that and sat down on her desk chair as his eyes explored her room.

* * *

Akane was the first one to notice that Ranma was rather well absent from the house. He wasn't in the Dojo doing any late night exercises or bugging her while she was watching her favorite TV shows.

'I wonder where did that no good pervert go to…' was the predominate thought in her mind.

But looking at the time which was reaching 9.00pm it was now time for both her and Nabiki to get on with their school assignments. Walking back up and into their separate rooms Akane saw that Kasumi was currently walking back to hers.

"Kasumi-neesan have you seen Ranma?" she asked her.

"Ranma…oh he's inside my room…"

Akane didn't even let her oldest sister continue on with the rest of her sentence as in a gush of wind she stood herself right in front of Kasumi's door fuming mad, her aura glowing up to a reddish orange.

Ranma who was on the other side of the room suddenly felt a very familiar aura and immediately knew who it was and not wanting to destroy the room that was Kasumi's only sanctuary and not to mention break the various small knick-knacks that she had arranged inside her room Ranma quickly slid open Kasumi's room window up and hastily leapt out.

"RANMA! YOU NO GOOD HENTAI NO-BAKA!" boomed Akane as she flung Kasumi's door open with a loud bang.

Luckily for Kasumi she had just managed to catch her plunging door plague just in time before it reached the floor.

As both girls scanned the room, Akane with her fiery eyes while Kasumi with her rather puzzled ones found the room rather desolate. Kasumi though noticed two things that were rather out of place in her room. One, Ranma's textbooks were still on her desk and secondly her curtains were riding along with the evening breeze that was blowing in.

"Akane…why are you so suspicious of him, don't you trust Ranma? You didn't even let me finish what I had to say before you barged into my room…" commented Kasumi sadly.

Akane not satisfied with the obvious even went as far as looking under Kasumi's bed and after seeing that the pigtailed pervert wasn't there she started to make her way out of Kasumi's room but not before facing her oldest sister, "Me trust him? Maybe when P-chan sprouts wings and flies..."

Somewhere right at that exact moment in a yet to be charted forested area somewhere on Earth, a yellow headband wearing eternally lost boy abruptly and violently sneezed.

"Then trust that no good pervert…" grumbled Akane.

Kasumi had wanted to say something in Ranma's defense but found that Akane was already halfway into her room by the time she had figured out what to say. After re-hanging her name plague back to its rightful position Kasumi walked over to her open window and looked outside.

* * *

Ranma was directly on top of Kasumi's room on the roof listening into the room hear if the coast was now clear for him to come back down. After hearing a few mumbled words from Akane and then silence Ranma sensing Akane's aura disappearing he looked down.

Kasumi who was looking for Ranma by the window gave a snuffled 'Oh my…' when the said boy she was looking for suddenly appeared right before her only upside down.

"I guess it's safe now huh?"

Kasumi who had her hands to her mouth nodded and watched the boy acrobatically swing back into her room.

"You know if Akane comes back in it'd make things look even worst…" said Kasumi with a hint of disappointment.

"Well…I didn't want her to trash your room if she saw me in here you know how she will think that's I'm here doing something perverted. And you have a lot of neat stuff lying around…" Ranma then pointed to all the small ornaments she had carefully arranged all over her shelves, some parts of her dresser and even desk.

"I didn't want to see you all miserable by losing them just because of me…I rather let her vent out her frustrations on me outside where its safe." he continued.

Kasumi sighed loudly, she didn't know if this side of Ranma was one of his strengths or weakness, his selflessness.

"Thanks for being considerate Ranma but I am sure I could have kept her under control…" she deduced.

"You don't know her like I do…when she gets ticked off like that no one can stop her…besides I didn't come here to talk about that uncute…uh…I mean Akane…I came here to get taught…" poised Ranma.

"Tutored…" came Kasumi's polite correction.

"Yeah…like you say Kasumi…tutored."

* * *

Over the next few days everyone noticed a subtle change in Ranma's overall attitude towards school. His teachers almost died of shock from seeing Ranma's exercise book and assignment papers, his first ones to date that they have ever seen on their table.

Not only was it passed up to them, it was done quite well in fact.

By the fifth day though they had sufficiently recovered from the initial blow and were by now giving up the notion that maybe the apocalypse was near.

His teachers had to even pleasantly admit among themselves that Ranma was actually becoming quite a model student, sure he wasn't at the top rankings of the classes but from where he was previously it was an immense improvement.

Ranma while doing his best to improve in his educational capabilities was also reminded not to let his martial arts capabilities falter from the most inconceivable source, Kasumi.

During one of their now regular tutoring sessions Kasumi had asked Ranma about how come he didn't try to spend more time in his education and his answer to her was that he didn't know how to balance two things at once. One was his schooling and the other was martial arts, he just couldn't find the time to do both effectively.

Kasumi always eager to help out then revised a kind of makeshift timetable for Ranma whereby from Mondays to Saturdays when he would have her tutoring him he would first exercise his body before his mind for 2 whole hours after coming home from school.

After dinner then Ranma would then be tutored by Kasumi in her room. While they were then arranging for Saturday afternoon and the whole of Sunday Kasumi was rather surprised to hear that Ranma was willing to be tutored all morning and then have his training in the afternoon before some more extra tutoring in the evenings. This was also repeated on a Sunday.

"Ranma…don't you think you would like to spend some time doing something you like during the weekends?" she asked Ranma with a hint of wonderment.

Without much hesitation Ranma replied, "Like what…?"

It was from his honest to goodness reply that Kasumi found out just how similar the two of them really are. Ranma had pretty much devoted his life to his arts that anything outside of its context wasn't deem necessary just like her with her family.

Differences between them were that Kasumi had at least discovered a few things she liked doing outside of the cooking, laundry and cleaning that she does. Things like reading books and maybe making herself a future with dealing with children be it in medicine or just childcare, Kasumi enjoyed having kids around her.

But for Ranma it was just martial arts full stop, no ambitions no hobbies just martial arts.

"Ranma don't you have anything you to like to do outside of the martial arts maybe like a hobby or maybe sports. Yes, sports you're very good in sports aren't you?" chirped Kasumi.

Ranma shook his head as he replied her, "Nope…can't say I have any hobbies and for sports…err…it wasn't really my choice to join any sports really. Since joining a club was compulsory, I joined a sports club and soon after that all the other sports clubs just sort of dragged me into joining them as well."

Another nice side effect from Kasumi's tutoring was Ranma's grasp of normal speech was improving as well. All the corrections Kasumi had been making for him were slowly being absorbed into Ranma's vocabulary and was in turn getting used by the youth while he talked.

"What about you Kasumi?" pondered Ranma out loud.

"Huh, sorry Ranma come again?"

Ranma grinned at her sudden lapse of concentration, "I mean what about you? What do you like to do? I mean when you have some free time."

"Mmmm…well reading books mostly."

"That sounds nice Kasumi, peaceful and quiet…" Ranma noted causally, his voice softly understanding her words.

* * *

The more Kasumi and Ranma interacted with each other the more she found out that Ranma, contrary to what the others have said about him liked nothing better then just living out a peaceful life. He didn't really like violence it was just the only method he knew how to solve most of his problems at the time.

This knowledge though on some nights kept Kasumi awake a little longer then she would have liked to.

'I'd swear that Ranma has two personalities inside of him rather then two genders, one is the brash and cocky Ranma and the other one, the tranquil and calm Ranma. He's just one big Yin and Yang circle…isn't he?' she thought to herself one night.

The next following nights that theory was cemented as Kasumi ran through all the new things she came to know of the young man named Ranma.

When provoked, Ranma would be and could be a very dangerous and destructive force but when he's calm Ranma could be the gentlest of persons she has ever known and this side of him was her obvious favorite.

Back to the timetable in hand, Kasumi had a great idea on how Ranma could spend some free time far away from both his school work and the arts.

"Ranma…how about you helping me out with my Saturday shopping for the house after school?"

It sounded a little selfish of her but Kasumi figured it would be fun but then again, "Sorry, just forget I said it…" she added at the end.

Ranma began to chuckle a little from where he was sitting, while drawing the tables for Kasumi to later fill in with her neater and marvelous handwriting.

Looking beside to Kasumi who was sitting down on her bed with notepad in hand, "You know what Kasumi…that's actually sounds good to me. I don't go to town much because I don't have much of a reason to but if you want me to help you then I guess that counts as a pretty good reason, doesn't it?" he concluded, while showing Kasumi his charming smile.

Kasumi nodded and merrily scribbled that fact down onto her notepad, her eyes deeply concentrated on each written word, her cheeks glinting up to a faint scarlet. She was hoping that Ranma wouldn't notice but stealing a quick glance at Ranma, who was too engrossed with drawing a perfect straight line she saw the way how his own cheeks hued as well.

Later that night as the finished timetable was proudly stuck on the wall right in front of Ranma's desk, a gentle reminder that his life was maybe getting a little better.

* * *

Akane for one had noticed how Ranma had been spending more time then usual with Kasumi and saying that she didn't like it was an understatement.

She had on more then one occasion after Kasumi was tutoring Ranma protested to her oldest sister that tutoring him, a officially branded 'pervert' was a danger to her well being and volunteered herself to tutor Ranma instead.

Akane even went as far to use the excuse that she was able to protect herself from Ranma's perverted ways a lot better then Kasumi to try and make it happen.

Kasumi to be fair to her youngest sister had then somehow managed to coax Ranma into letting Akane tutor him for at least a night to try and see how it goes.

And things were going well at first, Akane's tutoring of Ranma had just passed the half hour mark and Kasumi who was just about to get ready to read a book suddenly got up of bed when a loud sharp scream suddenly rang throughout the Tendo home that broke the night calm.

"WHY ARE YOU AS DUMB AS A COW AND THAT DAMN PERVERTED!" screamed Akane as she slammed her room door, Ranma then managed to catch her duck shaped name plague just in the nick of time.

Akane had not only thrown Ranma out of her room but his whole set of textbooks as well.

Kasumi quickly rushed outside to the hallway as fast as she could and noticed how Ranma was slowly picking up his books looking none for the worst. Walking up towards him, "Ranma…which subject did she try to tutor you in?" Kasumi asked knowingly.

"Maths…the chapter on statistics." he replied her sounding deflated.

"Isn't that a little advance for you…?" noted Kasumi as she helped Ranma by picking up the stray pencil that was by her right foot.

"I tried to tell her that but she said that she didn't want to slow herself down so…I…err…"

Kasumi knew what was coming, "So I kinda agreed to do the exercise she was doing…" she let out the sigh that she had kept in.

"And how many times did you ask her for help?"

Ranma stayed quiet but brought his two hands up and brought up 9 digits of his fingers.

"9 times in 30 minutes? That's not so bad…" remarked Kasumi with some consolation.

"Well…not actually Kasumi it's more like 9 times in 5 minutes I stopped asking her after that. Then when she checked out my answer sheet she threw me out… " responded Ranma shyly.

"What did you do?"

Ranma showed Kasumi the page he had been working on and well even she had to let out a chuckle at what she saw. For written in bold penciled letters across the width of the entire page were the words 'I hate Maths! And you don't give me any candy!'

What Akane didn't know was that Kasumi would actually reward Ranma if he had done particularly well after a tutoring session. That reward was usually in the form of his favorite box of candy or snack that she would buy from the market for him the next day. Akane must have thought that 'candy' meant something else, most likely something distorted.

After that Ranma happily kept Kasumi as his tutor.

* * *

While Akane was fuming at the close proximity of her fiancé and oldest sister Nabiki was somewhat more neutral towards the whole thing.

To her it was just as interesting to see how long Akane would take it before she snaps and plummet Ranma for just even breathing on Kasumi the wrong way while on the other hand though remote would anything else happen between them.

Sure Ranma was Akane's fiancé but as Nabiki would rather not admit to anyone else that he fits into the mold of every girl's idea of a dream guy.

'He's incredibly cute, loyal and protective of your safety and sure he's a little dense at times but that's easily overlooked.' were her thoughts on him.

After all Nabiki had Ranma for her own fiancé albeit for a day and well she still cherished those few moments she had shared with him in secret.

But Ranma lacked what Nabiki truly looked for in a guy, money and brains. Not that Ranma didn't have any brains his just didn't work the way Nabiki wanted it to. And of course not unless Ranma has a vast fortune stashed somewhere that she doesn't know about then well Nabiki would just stand back and watch the fireworks fly in the ongoing saga that is Ranma's love struggle between her younger sister, the Amazon, the chef and the black rose.

Until recently though it had always been just the two younger Tendo daughter's who had shown even any trace of liking the pigtailed martial artist. Regardless be if for love or self gain, Akane was in it probably for love while Nabiki having shown a slight interest with Ranma was in it for her own self gain.

Kasumi on the other hand had never once shown any feelings remotely to that of liking Ranma other then just being polite to him as how a host shows affection to a house guest.

But lately Nabiki had began to notice how Kasumi was well getting rather 'chummy' with Ranma as of late. From small little teases to just simple gestures shared between the two of them, she carefully noted each one. And she sort of hoped that they weren't skating on thin ice.

She prayed for her sister's sake and hoped that Kasumi knew that too. That collimated to her standing in front of Kasumi's door one night right after Ranma had left her room after their usual tutoring session.

Knock-Knock

"Who is it?" responded a voice from the inside.

"It's me, Nabiki…"

Hearing Kasumi's permission Nabiki opened the door and strolled into her sister's room.

"Sorry to disturb you like this Kasumi…" Nabiki had noticed the book she had just laid down on the side of her bed as she walked in.

"It's okay…anything the matter?"

Nabiki sat herself down on Kasumi's bed and offhandedly asked her, "So…how are things going with Ranma…?"

"Oh…he's coming along real well. Other then maths Ranma's really catching up on the rest of his other subjects in school, soon he won't need me to tutor him anymore."

Just at the end of her sentence Nabiki detected the faint trace of melancholy in Kasumi's voice.

"I see…well then isn't that a good thing nee-chan? You'd get to have your evenings back to yourself again…free to read your books…do what you what to do…isn't that nice?"

Kasumi without thinking turned her head over to look at her desk and remembered back to how rarely she had used it. Not since her own schooldays has it seen any form of usage except for the rare case when she sat at it and browsed her mother's handwritten recipe book.

"I guess…" was Kasumi's reply, her voice becoming a low saddened whisper.

Nabiki distinctively caught this and noticed how her sister's voice had sounded even sadder then when she had earlier declared that Ranma would no longer need her tutoring soon.

"Well just to remind you that Ranma's sometimes more trouble then he's worth, sure he's cute and all but if you get the chance to get rid of him you better do so and quickly…he tends to carry with him a lot of excess baggage."

* * *


	4. Chapter 4

_Disclaimer:_

Do I really need to put this every time…?

Team of lawyers suddenly storm into my room and stare the author down…

Author Sweatdrops

Okay you guys know the drill I don't own Ranma… hehe

* * *

_Author Notes:_

Thanks for all the reviews…they are as insightful and useful and most of all welcomed as always by me. I'm glad that everyone likes how I've paced the story had that was my original intention as all my other works had been sort of 'cut to the chase…' hope to make it as flowing as it can with this next chapter…

Lastly but not the least, a very big thank you and sincere arigatou goes out to my pre-reader, Drkjester aka Thanatos. Without him I would have probably forgotten and also lost my way on this fic altogether...thanks man.

Now onto the story…

* * *

Chapter 4

* * *

"Saotome Ranma, very commendable improvements indeed, please continue." congratulated the elderly teacher as she patted him lightly on left shoulder. She was Misses Shimori, Ranma's history teacher.

Ranma looked at the written in red ink mark beside his name on the test paper and grinned, it read 61. Not a ground breaking score but for someone who had used to only write his name on all his previous test papers in the past this counted as an extraordinary achievement.

He felt delighted but not the least proud, extremely proud in fact not only himself but he was even prouder with the person who had made it all possible. Kasumi had been spending a lot of effort with him the past few days to prepare him for this test. And this test paper was the fruits of their labor…

Ranma couldn't wait to show it to Kasumi when he got home, actually he couldn't wait period and just as the lunch time bell sounded his feet as if having a mind of its own carried him all the way out of the school compound and even finding the front gate locked shut didn't stop him, as he skillfully leapt over them.

Rooftop after rooftop, Ranma skittered over them spryly, he had never felt like this before and honestly he couldn't even remember back to a time when he was this happy before in his entire life.

Kasumi in the meantime was outside in the Tendo yard hanging out the morning's laundry under the now happily shining sun. This chore had actually been delayed a bit by the morning's dark clouds, threatening of rain but after seeing the sun come out in full force Kasumi decided that it was safe to hang them out to dry.

While she was there Kasumi was sure that she heard someone calling her name.

Reaching the ever familiar junction that leads to the Dojo Ranma as if he wasn't going fast enough ran even faster to the gates but he didn't bother to even open them. Instead he bounded over them and ran straight for the garden shouting, "KASUMI!"

"KASUMI!" as her name echoed out around the backyard bouncing off the walls and into her ears. Kasumi turned around only in time to catch a blur buzz of a figure suddenly picking her up and spinning her around.

* * *

Ranma had sort of guessed beforehand that Kasumi would probably be in the backyard doing her chores right about now and when he saw her hanging out the laundry he shouted her name once more…

Within the next few steps Ranma quickly captured Kasumi into his arms and swung her around in the backyard, the two of them seemingly twirling in each others arms as if in a dance.

Kasumi was stunned silent initially but she then begged Ranma to stop and put her down. It took a while for the two of them to come to a stop and when Ranma returned her two feet to solid ground Kasumi tittered around a bit before getting her balance back.

"Ranma…what happened? Shouldn't…you be…in school…?" requested Kasumi of him albeit shakily.

"Look! Kasumi Look! I passed…! For the first time I passed…!" Ranma yelled out happily towards her while holding up the now pretty much crumpled piece of paper for her to see.

Kasumi read the mark out loud and immediately broke out in such a wide grin that it almost threatened to split her face in two.

"Ranma…oh I'm so happy for you…" this time around it was Kasumi's turn to embrace the boy, minus the furious spinning.

"I knew you could do it…" she added confidently, while doing a mild version of a glomp.

"Well I couldn't…have done it without…your help…Kasumi." panted Ranma, finally feeling the effects of his run or was it from Kasumi's tight grip around his chest.

Kasumi really honestly felt happy for Ranma, not only him but also herself too. She was happy to have contributed in a small way to his success.

"I'm so happy for you Ranma…like I said you can do it if you only put your mind to it…and I want to say that I'm very proud of you." she said softly to him, making sure she was just loud enough for him to hear.

Still inside her hug Kasumi now felt as if Ranma was trembling somewhat and hastily released him as if she had said something wrong. And as she took a step back to see what had happened. Kasumi wasn't really prepared to see the sight before her.

Ranma stood before her biting down on his bottom lip hard, "Nobody…ever…said that to me…before…" his voice quivering, his eyes threatened to burst open for only the second time in his life but Ranma willed them not to, this wasn't the time to cry for it was a time to smile.

Kasumi retook the step she lost and slowly circled her arms around Ranma bringing him into an even softer, gentler hug and as her hand went over to the back of his head and brought it down to finally rest on her shoulder once more.

"In that case I'd say it once more…I'm really proud of you, Ranma…" she whispered honestly.

* * *

Back in Furinkan, a rather miffed looking Akane sat beside a carefree Nabiki who was eating her lunch while grumbling on about how rude Ranma was to leave her like that.

She had complained to Nabiki about how Ranma had left the classroom in such a rush and that even after looking for him around the usual spots she couldn't find him and even after she had 'generously' carried his bento for him too that morning.

Nabiki had a rough idea where he might be but she needed to wait till tonight to see if she was right.

Ranma and Kasumi finally separated after taking notice how their individual father's facial reactions were towards seeing them hugging out by the garden like they were.

With Kasumi's father, Soun and his monster face floating over the pig tailed boy while Genma, Ranma's father trying his best to whack Ranma in the head with a furry of thrown signboards.

After explaining to them what had happened the two patriarchs somewhat still looking unsure left the pair to get back to their game of Shoji but from their perch on the walkway they kept a rather watchful eye on the two.

Though it had taken a good ten minutes to explain to Soun and Genma about what was really going on between them the deep blushes of their cheeks probably didn't abet their cause much.

"I…err…think I better get going back to classes…its getting late and so…err…bye Kasumi…I'd see you later…" shuffled Ranma as he started to backtrack away from Kasumi.

Kasumi who was picking up her laundry basket mirrored Ranma's bashful expression as well. After wording her own goodbye to him and ending it with a wave Ranma swiftly turned around and left running back to Furinkan.

He return back to his classroom just in the nick of time and while Ranma didn't mind so much that he had missed lunch but the cold stares that Akane and Ukyo were shooting at him as he walked pass them did make him a little uncomfortable but he was too elated to worry much about it.

* * *

Ranma's three fiancés and one very avid admirer had started to take notice that Ranma was, well in a better word, missing for the most part of any particular day more often then not lately. They felt like Ranma no longer roamed the streets of Nerima like he used to thus making it slightly harder for them to see him or rather catch him.

Kodachi, well she could see Ranma whenever she wanted too, but even she couldn't catch a single glimpse of her white knight for the past few days now.

Shampoo could at least catch him once or twice while on one of her delivery runs for the cat café but lately she noticed that she hadn't seen him at all wondering the streets for a few days now.

Ukyo would of course see Ranma in school but while manning Ucchan's she would at least get the occasional visit from Ranma when he was hungry but lately even that seemed to have stopped altogether.

That just leaves just Akane, the fiancée who naturally had the most convenient access to Ranma or so it seems. It seems that Akane while she was at home would actually get to see less of Ranma then normal.

She had already forgiven him for the glomping incident with Shampoo a few days back and well for the most part Ranma was acting rather normal toward her while she was around. Even his teasing of her 'tomboyish ways' had lessened considerably, even Akane's usually high malleting count of the marital artist had dropped to naught recently.

Ranma's normal day used to go something like this in the past.

Go to school, fight, go home, fight, do exercises to release tension, roaming around Nerima thinking about stuff if exercises fail, fight, try to find something to eat, fight. And of course that was inclusive of the instances of him being punted to lower orbit by some un-cute tomboy.

That cycle would then repeat itself endlessly.

But now Ranma's day seemed pretty mundane. His day now ran something like this…

Go to school, try to study hard, go home then train for a few hours then later start tutoring session and then go to sleep. Of course one major factor that made this possible was the fact that Ranma was now trying hard to avoid getting into any fights more often then not.

* * *

'I wonder what made me do that…' as Ranma thoughts wondered back to his lunch time journey when he had raced all the back to the Dojo just to tell Kasumi that he had passed a history test.

'I mean…I could have easily told her when I got back right? But the feeling just sort of came up…It was like I really wanted to tell her right away…now that's weird.' continued his thoughts as Ranma was on his way home.

'But it was kinda worth it seeing Kasumi smile like she did and also say that she was proud of me…'

With his hands stuffed deeply into his usual black pants while walking on the fence home. Akane and Nabiki who were a few steps behind him walking on the street below pondered at the mystery that was Ranma.

"You think something's up with him don't you?" commented Nabiki.

Akane who was beside her sister had an unreadable expression on her face. She had been trying to figure out just what in the heck was going on with Ranma for a few days now. She suspected that Ranma might be doing something improper behind her back but so far she had found nothing.

All the hours with her ear primed in front of Kasumi's door when no one was looking yielded nothing other then the fact that Ranma and Kasumi were becoming rather good friends.

"I don't know Nabiki-neesan, I mean it seems like Ranma and Kasumi-neesan have been becoming very good friends lately…"

"And that's supposed to be a bad thing or maybe you wish that you were in Kasumi's shoes instead?" Nabiki was eager to note down what her youngest sister feelings were on the recent events between Ranma and Kasumi.

Akane gave a loud and expected 'humph' but the way her cheeks faintly flared up betrayed her true feelings.

"Ha…why would I even want to be close with that hentai freak? I mean he's bound to have something up his sleeve. I just don't want Kasumi-neesan to be tricked that's all."

"So in a manner of speaking that would mean…or let me guess, you're jealous?" Nabiki grinned down to her youngest sibling wickedly.

Akane was about to give her reply when she suddenly noticed trouble coming their way.

Quickly closing in on them were the fighting figures of one Shampoo and one Ukyo who was still in her male Furinkan school uniform.

"What you mean pancake chef don't know where airen go?" Shampoo demanded as she swung her bonbori downwards.

Ukyo expertly ducked from the bonbori swing and retaliated with a swing of her giant spatula, "Look honey I don't know where Ranchan is, other then seeing him in school I haven't seen him around okay!"

And as if they had a six sense when Ranma was near them or something the pair suddenly looked forward and saw the object of their current dispute walking right towards them.

"AIREN!"

"RANCHAN!"

* * *

Ranma hearing his name being shouted loudly looked straight ahead and rolled his eyes at what he saw. Shampoo and Ukyo were running up to him at a frantic stride and in anticipation of trouble Ranma leapt off the fence and onto the more stable pavement.

"Where airen go all this time? Shampoo no see airen long long time…want airen bring Shampoo on date. Or maybe airen taste new Ramen recipe at cafe."

Ukyo who was busily trying to push the purple hair Amazon aside joined in the fray as well, "Well now I'm sure Ranchan would rather come over to Ucchan's and taste my all new special Beef-Seafood Combo Okonomiyaki rather then some measly bowl of Ramen…wouldn't you Ranchan?"

Akane's blood began to boil upon seeing the two of them dallying up to Ranma like they were and hurriedly plodded her way up to the trio.

Ranma gazed at the two girls frantically bullying each other trying to stand right in front of him and sighed loudly, "I'm sorry Shampoo and to you too, Ukyo but I just can't today…so if you'd excuse me…"

Sidestepping to his right around the jostling girls Ranma simply continued on walking back home leaving the two aforementioned girls behind him dumbfounded.

Akane who was wielding a mallet was actually ready to boot Ranma into orbit but stopped when she saw him calmly walking away from the two girls. She was as surprised as Shampoo and Ukyo were right at that moment.

Normally he would dally his way into trouble by stalling not wanting to hurt anyone's feelings but this time around he just walked away from them as if he could care less.

Nabiki who was standing back intently studying the scene in front of her cheerfully stored the information she had gathered from the little display into memory and reminded herself to write it down later for future reference in her diary.

* * *

Back in the Dojo, Ranma after changing into his Gi quietly banished himself to the Dojo with hopes of clearing his thoughts by engaging in some vigorous training. His mind had been up till now still rationalizing his earlier action of rushing back to the Dojo that afternoon.

Kata after Kata, each subsequent one longer then the last yet Ranma managed to do each set flawlessly. By the time when he was done, Ranma felt as if his entire body was about to shut down on him due to the over exertion.

Panting heavily while hunching down, beads of sweat dripped off his forehead to sort of pool underneath him on the Dojo floor. He wasn't so much confused now with his actions, Ranma by now was just content with simply wanting to know why he did it.

So caught up within his thoughts was Ranma that he didn't hear the soft footsteps of a certain Tendo daughter walking towards him.

"Ranma…dinner's almost ready." reminded Kasumi, as she stood in front of him.

Still in a hunched over stance Ranma nodded back to her but said nothing. Kasumi then bent down a little and looked up to him holding up his usual bottle of drinking water right in front of his hand for him.

"You forgot to take this...you must have been very eager to get some training in for you rushed into the Dojo just as soon as you came back from school."

Ranma gladly took the offered bottle from her hand and smiled back at Kasumi, showing her his thanks. He then drank almost the whole bottle down in one go and once he was finished, "I'd better get cleaned up for dinner…" and walked away from the now standing Kasumi.

Once at the doorway, Ranma glanced back to her over his shoulder for a second before he stepped out of the Dojo. He then just stood outside of the doorway as if waiting…

Kasumi suddenly then sort of understood that he was waiting for her and made her way out as well.

* * *

By now the two fathers of the houses, Genma and Soun had been noticing how Ranma was getting along nicely with Akane, well if you call barely speaking to each other for the past few days while just making due with greetings and a few short sentences getting along then you must be one Tendo Soun and Saotome Genma.

The pair had once again cooked up another 'how to get them hitched' plan, 'them' usually meant Akane and Ranma.

Nearing the end of that night's dinner right in front of everyone, "Seeing how Ranma and Akane have been acting more friendlily towards each other for the past few days now I was thinking that maybe it was time we made the whole thing between Ranma and Akane official." Genma announced loudly.

This was met with the wide open eyes of disbelief from Akane while Ranma just got up and was on his way out of the dinning room before Soun continued.

"We were thinking of maybe just having a ceremony at the ward's marriage registrar's office…nothing fancy. We tried all the fancy stuff once and well that didn't work out. Besides it's been already a year or so now since you two were engaged…"

"OTOSAN! I AM NOT GOING TO GO ALONG WITH THIS!" Akane screamed while almost splitting the table in two by the act of slamming of her fists on it.

"LOOK POPS, I DON'T KNOW WHAT GAVE YOU THIS BRIGHT IDEA OF YOURS BUT AKANE AND I ARE CERTAINLY NOT AS FRIEDNLY AS YOU THINK WE ARE…" yelled Ranma.

Genma was the first to reply to their objections as he stood up staring his son head on, "Then when? Look here boy…you've been dragging this issue along for long enough and you may not know it but once you get married to Akane all the girl 'problems' you have now may actually go away. Have you ever thought of it that way?"

Ranma now clearly pissed stood over to his own father and grabbed him up by the collar of his Gi and hissed his reply, "Look here pops…me getting married to Akane isn't going to solve anything…getting married to her is only going to make things worst…"

Akane who had overheard what he had said as usual took it the wrong way, "LOOK HERE YOU HENTAI WHO SAID ANYTHING ABOUT MARRYING YOU…!"

"AKANE! Let me finish what I've got to say for once please…!" Ranma spat back to her.

Turning his attention back to his father…

"Like I was saying marrying Akane isn't going to solve anything because as if you didn't notice that there are three other girls out there who would be more then happy to make me a widower right after my marriage ceremony. Akane, I'd admit can more then handle herself in a fight but for how long? I don't want us to fight amongst each other and then the rest of the girls every single damn day of our lives. Nice idea pops but I've already trashed that one out the window a few weeks back…"

Ranma after letting that one out from his system looked a little more collected and finally let go of his father's collar and searched for a way out of the current uneasy situation and noticing Kasumi who was standing rigid by the kitchen door holding a handful of unwashed dinner plates…

"Here Kasumi, let me help you with that…"

Ranma then quickly walked up to her and taking the plates off her hands stormed right into the kitchen leaving Soun in his waterworks mode and Genma mumbling about his son's ungratefulness.

* * *

"Ranma…why don't you let me wash the plates instead and you can…err…dry them…" Kasumi hesitatingly suggested.

Ranma got her delicate hint and moved over to the side of the sink and took up the drying towel allowing Kasumi to move in. After the second plate had been dried Ranma spoke up, breaking the thick silence between the two.

"Sorry Kasumi, I didn't mean to ruin dinner like that and just to let you know it isn't that I don't want to marry Akane…it's just not the right time…" he murmured, as id unsure of his words.

Kasumi nodded perceptively, "It's okay but did you really think that much on how to solve your problems?"

Ranma after placing the third plate into the cupboard replied Kasumi poignantly, "Well you get to think about a lot of things when you have a month's worth of sleepless nights. I just thought and thought about all the things that had happened to me from the very first day I moved in till now. Then I'd think of how to fix things so that everyone's happy in the end and how to fix those who aren't. My life isn't just about yes and no, it has a yes, a no and then the maybes, what ifs and what then …"

Kasumi would always learn something new about Ranma almost every time they had a meaningful chat and this was one of those chats. His personality wasn't just made up of infinite knowledge of agile kicks, powerful punches and awesome Chi blasts.

Ranma was a lot more to that then people give him credit for and Kasumi was somewhat glad in the knowledge that she was probably the only one who knew this side of the boy.

After passing him another freshly washed plate, "Ranma…would you mind taking a walk with me later after we're done with the dishes. I have a book that I've finished reading quite a while ago which I borrowed from Dr. Tofu and I really should return back to him. And I think the clear night air might calm you down a bit…"

Ranma laughed a little at this, "Yeah…I'd like that…I must look like an open book to you now…it's that easy to read my mood huh?"

Kasumi grinned, "Mmmm…call it a woman's intuition."

* * *

"What book did you read Kasumi?" wondered Ranma out loud as he pointed to the medium sized paperback book in her grasp.

They were just about to turn at the junction that led to the back alleyway of the clinic but stopping under a street light, "It's a book on child psychology…" Kasumi turned the book around to its front cover and handed it over to Ranma.

Ranma browsing over the book was impressed not with the book which was entirely written in English but with Kasumi.

"Wow…Kasumi, it's written in English…" he stopped and then with a rather lopsided grin, "I guess people really don't know much about you…eh?" added Ranma as he returned the book back to Kasumi.

"What you mean Ranma?" as they continued walking.

"Well…err…I mean no hard feelings and all but I used to think you were err…"

"Clueless? Maybe a little dense…?" joked Kasumi as if she had read Ranma's mind.

By now the back gate of the clinic had just came into view.

"Emm…yeah something like that…sorry about that but looking back at the past few days I've just realized that I'm the clueless one here. I mean I can't even make up my mind who I really want to get engaged with...pathetic huh…?"

Ranma looking beside him noticed that Kasumi had stopped walking all of a sudden for some unknown reason with a rather fixed gaze and looking to where or what she was staring at…

* * *

Megumi had now took it upon herself to take up the role of resident chef of the clinic upon her arrival after looking at what was prepared for her first dinner by the good doctor. That dinner had been made up totally of instant foods like precooked canned curry, pickled radishes and canned soup, pretty normal fare of an unmarried man but not too healthy she added.

After purging the doctor's cupboards of the so called food Megumi went on a very long shopping trip around Nerima and bought groceries that were more fitting to fill his kitchen pantry. And now the two were getting on with preparing their dinner after a pretty long day of tending to patients.

Megumi had decided that today they would have a variation of the rich stew, Chanko famous among Sumo's for dinner. Her variation was just smaller in size and a little less in carbohydrates.

While tending to the pot of boiling stock Megumi had assigned the sensei to handle the chopping up of the vegetables when she suddenly heard…

"Ouch…"

Turning around to the doctor she gasped at the sight of him bringing up his cut finger to his mouth. Noticing Megumi's shocked expression, "Hehe…guess that's why I didn't become a surgeon…" he joked.

Megumi though wasn't in the mood for jokes. She quickly ran over to him and pulled him over to the sink and ran the cut clean under the tap of flowing water. She then rushed out to the office and returned with a first aid kit before giving the cut her utmost attention.

A little bit fazed by the attention he was getting from Megumi, "Megumi-san it's really nothing just a small cut…nothing to fret over. A band-aid over it and it'd be as good as new."

"Senpai, you should really be careful with yourself and a cut can lead to many things if let unattended..." brooded Megumi as she began to tend to his cut finger.

Truth was the good doctor was getting rather uncomfortable with the way Megumi was holding his hand with hers. He couldn't help but blush at the way she tenderly touched his hand as if it was the whole hand that was hurt and not only the finger.

"Senpai…are you okay your hands their trembling…"

Looking up to him and noticing how red his cheeks had gotten she giggled, "Senpai are you embarrassed by me touching your hands? I wouldn't have taken you for the shy type, I'm sure all your single female patients give you your fair share of teasing since you're so handsome and all…"

"Err…well…I sort of asked them to stop…" he replied her with a silly grin.

* * *

Kasumi knew for a fact that during this time Dr. Tofu would be just about finished with dinner and should be in the kitchen washing his plates but what she didn't expect to see the sight of Megumi and a rather flushed not to mentioned flustered looking Dr. Tofu holding hands by the window laughing.

Ranma saw this as well and switched his attention between Kasumi and the kitchen window. 'Okay this is got to be something bad…' was the thought that was going through his head.

The slight reflection of a pang of heartbreak flashed across Kasumi's face but it went away as fast as it came. Turning to Ranma, "Ranma…would you be so kind as to give this book back to the sensei for me. I just remembered that I left…left the kettle on the stove…"

She then promptly handed Ranma the book, turned around and started to walk away from the clinic briskly. Ranma who was confused with current events quickly walked up to the back door and knocked.

Dr. Tofu came up answering the door and smiled to the young pigtailed youth, "Ah…Ranma-kun what brings you here?"

Ranma handed over the book to him and with a rather deadpan voice, "Kasumi asked me to give this back to you…she said thanks." The thanks part was added in by Ranma, he knew that was probably what she would have said to him herself if she was here.

Even before he could invite Ranma in for some tea the boy turned around and left.

"I wonder where he is going in such a rush…" wondered Tofu out loud.

Megumi then walked back into the kitchen, "Who was that just now?"

* * *

Ranma soon caught up with Kasumi who didn't get very far and continued walking beside her. And for the whole walk home they said nothing at all to each other.

Back inside the Tendo home Ranma noticed how Kasumi instead of heading to the kitchen to take off the kettle of the stove headed straight upstairs. So he decided to check on the kettle himself instead just in case.

Walking up the stairs to his room, Ranma had found not only that there wasn't a kettle on the stove, the kettle itself wasn't even filled with any water. This bothered Ranma, 'This isn't like Kasumi to forget things about the kitchen…'

He stopped in front of his room door but looking ahead down the hallway Ranma couldn't help but feel the urge to just look in on Kasumi instead.

Kasumi felt nothing out of the ordinary while she walked home. Sure she was at first a little stunned by the sight of Megumi, a rather beautiful young woman holding Dr. Tofu's hands in hers but after a few seconds she felt nothing.

Even now she wasn't feeling anything was amiss with her emotions or thoughts. 'Shouldn't I feel at least something?' she asked herself as she sat down on the foot of her bed looking rather blankly at her hands.

Dr. Tofu had been always the one that was sort of 'her match'. They had been friends since high school and well just about everyone in Nerima knew just how fond he was of her.

But every time she would pay him a visit he would just go haywire and dance around with Betty-chan or just blabber incoherently. That was why the two of them had yet to even spend more then a few minutes in each others company, normally.

A soft knock on her door interrupted her reflection, "Kasumi…It's me Ranma, mind if I come in?"

* * *

Ranma leaned outside Kasumi's room door tying his best to listen in to anything peculiar but stepped back when he heard the door click open.

Peering though the gap he could see Kasumi walking back to sit down on her bed, "Come in Ranma…anything the matter?" she inquired from where she sat down.

Ranma cautiously walked in and sat down across Kasumi on her desk chair and studied her vigilantly.

'She looks okay…' he figured silently.

"Is there something on my face Ranma?" she carefully voiced.

Ranma found that he had been gazing at Kasumi for too long, "Ah…no nothing sorry for staring at you…"

"Did you want to talk to me about anything? I'm sorry Ranma but I don't think I'm up to our tutoring session for tonight so if you don't mind can we postpone it till tomorrow…?"

"Huh? Oh that…yeah sure I don't mind. But…err…Kasumi are you feeling okay? I mean you looked kinda upset there for a second just now while we were at the clinic…"

Kasumi shook her head, "I'm okay Ranma…it's nothing really…"

"Anyway Kasumi I actually wanted to say sorry to you for the way I acted this afternoon. You know it wasn't really…ah what's the word…appropriate of me to do what I did…" explained Ranma, changing the topic a bit.

A small smile crept up Kasumi's face, "No need to apologize Ranma. I sort of understood how you were feeling at the time so there isn't any misunderstanding between us."

Ranma somewhat felt a little relieved to hear her say that but the inkling of worry he had felt prior somehow didn't lift.

"Anyway Kasumi, sleep tight okay and if you need to talk about anything I'd be here to listen to you remember that okay…err…I guess see you tomorrow then. Good night." he said back to Kasumi before leaving the room.

Ranma walking back into his room was still haunted by the deep down gut feeling that Kasumi was trying to mask her emotions. He had without Kasumi's knowledge sort of tried to read her aura. That was a skill he would normally practice only in battles but Ranma felt that he wanted to make sure of Kasumi's state of mind.

He could pick up on the obvious external expressions like how dull her expression had dropped to and how her voice lost it's a bit of its usual cheerful outlook. Her aura was calm but he was sure that he had felt a bit of sadness mixed into it.

'Sad thing is I know how that's feels like…' Ranma thought to himself as he sat down by his desk.

"I hope what happened in the clinic was just a big misunderstanding…if Tofu-sensei ever intentionally hurt Kasumi…" Ranma started but then even before he could finish the sentence.

'Then what…? Stomp off to the clinic and beat the crap out of the guy…come on Ranma this is between the two of them…' silently nagged his insides.

"You'd be acting no better then Akane…" he sadly whispered to himself.

Ranma shook his head clear of those rather unsavory thoughts and took out his textbooks, he wasn't about to slack off just because he had the night off. And focusing on his schoolwork was also a ploy to get his mind off the things he had bore witness to.

* * *

Next morning Ranma woke up and found that he had fallen asleep by his desk but what he didn't remember doing was switching his desk light off. All he remembered was how Genma had at around 11 decided to finally crawl into his futon and no sooner did he lay his head on the pillow that he started to snore…loudly.

Strange thing then was that Ranma felt something slightly heavy had been laid on his back and looking over his shoulders he found that his blanket had somehow managed to find its way over his back.

"Pops…?" he uttered while looking back to the still snoring man lying behind him. Ranma quickly laughed at the idea, not that it wasn't possible just that Genma could sleep through just about anything and looking at his clock he found it to be just a quarter past six.

After thinking about what to do next, be it to go back to sleep or just do something before breakfast Ranma sort of ended up with the idea to just watch the sunrise from the roof.

Sufficiently awake now, Ranma slowly crawled out of his window and nimbly made it to the roof. Just as he sat himself down the morning sun broke above the skyline horizon.

* * *

Kasumi at that same time was just about finished with the preparations for her family's breakfast in the kitchen. She had woken up at her usual time of half past five and after freshening up a bit with a quick early morning shower Kasumi quietly made her way down the second floor hallway.

Just as she made it pass Ranma's and Genma's room she noticed how amidst the darkened room a lone light still shone from the inside of it and she knew right away that it was from Ranma's desk.

Not one to waste electricity if lets per say Ranma had somewhat forgotten to switch it off before going to sleep. Kasumi quietly slid the room door slightly open so as to see for herself if that was the case.

Looking inside Kasumi could dimly make out the outline of a figure stooped over the desk and upon a closer inspection she found Ranma sound asleep, using his thick opened physics textbook as a makeshift pillow.

'Ranma must have slept that way for the whole night…' were her thoughts.

Kasumi shivered a bit for she had felt the slow chill of the cold morning air creeping in from the half yawning window right in front of him.

After taking out Ranma's unused blanket from the nearby cupboard, Kasumi silently knelt down beside Ranma and carefully covered him up. She then turned off his desk lamp and shut the window in front of him to keep out the frigid morning air.

Before she left Kasumi tidied up the pile of books strewn around Ranma's desk and smiled as she slid the door close behind her, 'If only he had been this motivated when he first came…'

* * *

Ranma was way ahead with Akane and Nabiki walking behind him, he had decided to take the normal route to school that morning. That meant that he was walking on the street, like most other people do.

And while passing the clinic's main gate…

Splash

Ranma-chan stood there in all her wet glory as she glared towards the said party that had just splashed her irately.

"Ah…Ranma-chan sorry…" apologized Dr. Tofu as he ran up to her, "Megumi-san didn't mean it…here let me get you a kettle for that…" he continued as he ran back to the clinic.

Ranma-chan stared coldly at the raven haired girl, as images of the doctor with her hands around his were recalled from last night.

"I'm sorry…" said the raven haired girl with little emotion.

Akane and Nabiki soon walked up to the duo, "Morning sensei…" beamed Akane. Dr. Tofu then handed the kettle over to Ranma-chan who then over turned the appliance over himself and changed back to Ranma.

"And who is this Tofu-sensei…?" questioned Nabiki with an inquisitive tone.

"Ah…Akane-chan and Nabiki-chan, good morning…Let me introduce to you my new assistant, Megumi-san. She'd be interning with me for a year…"

Megumi then bowed towards the two girls and to Ranma who had been a girl but was now a boy.

Ranma returning the kettle, "Thanks sensei but I've got to go don't want to be late for school…" with that he promptly walked away from the small collection of people.

This coming from Ranma of all people stunned both Nabiki and Akane but then later realized that he was right for they were running a little late.

As Ranma walked away Megumi kept her eyes clued onto his back, 'I don't like the way he looks at me.' she said to herself.

* * *


End file.
